End Of the Line
by shewhoguards
Summary: Hell was, Snape decided, a crowded railway platform.Post Deathly Hallows. Contains spoilers.
1. End of the Line

Hell was, Snape decided, a crowded railway platform. If any more people joined them, he wasn't going to be able to _breathe_, and if he ever found out who'd just trodden on his foot, that child was going to be very sorry. The station was packed to the brim, children and teachers alike squashed uncomfortably together as they waited for the train to arrive.

And it was raining. Bloody British weather.

A tinny voice came from the tannoy, and he raised his head to try and make out what it was saying. A hush fell over the assembled travellers for a moment – no-one wanted to miss the announcement.

"_We regret to announce that the train from platform nine-and-three-quarters will be delayed by approximately-"_

The rest of the announcement was drowned in the groan that rose from the crowd. People started to move en-masse, pushing their way towards benches, looking for somewhere to shelter from the rain. A small boy, clutching a camera tightly to his chest, almost ran straight into Severus. Catching sight of the man's expression, he backed off hastily, disappearing back into the crowd.

"Don't think I don't know that face, Colin Creevey!" Snape bellowed after him, "Five points from Gryffindor!"

It made him feel slightly better, but didn't do anything to improve his general situation. Shouting wasn't going to make the station any less crowded, and he was still getting wet.

Well, he could do something about that second part at least. He looked about, finally spying a shop doorway that seemed to hold some potential for shelter, and started to make his way towards it.

It wasn't as easy a plan as it had first seemed. He was elbowed in the chest on the way by some Weasley or another – he didn't get time to see which but there was no mistaking that red hair – and barked his shins on an owl cage someone had decided to carelessly abandoned in the middle of the platform.

He recognised that owl too. Harry Potter would get a _detention_ for that as soon as Snape saw him again. It would be him, wouldn't it? It was always him.

When he finally reached the meagre shelter the doorway provided, he noted with displeasure that he wasn't going to even get to enjoy that alone. One of the Station guards had wisely decided that it was better to be hiding over here than in the midst of a crowd of unhappy people who'd just been told that their train was going to be late.

Not that that stopped people coming to find him. Snape scowled at him, leaning back against the doorway, "Just what is the delay?"

The Guard's face turned towards him, and if Snape had been anyone else he might have shivered, or stepped back. Once you'd faced Voldemort, it was unlikely you'd scare easily at anything else. Still, it was an uncommonly thin face, one might even say skeletal.

_LEAVES ON THE LINE._ He said calmly.

"It's a magical train!" Snape snapped exasperated, annoyed by the people, and the rain, and the whole stupid situation. He was a wizard, he didn't have time to wait around for trains that turned up whenever they felt like it, and never mind the timetable.

_MAGICAL LEAVES. _The Guard regarded him calmly, and Snape was conscious that some part of his mind was whispering urgently that there was nothing for the man to regard him _with_. There were no eyes in those eye-sockets, just…

He blinked, and looked again. Don't be ridiculous. Of course he had eyes. Blue ones.

Some things even a wizard's brain cannot handle, and a seven foot high skeleton in a Guard uniform is one of them.

"I see." He said sharply, "Well, do you have any idea just when this train might face down the truly _formidable_ problem of leaves, and actually arrive? Some of us have somewhere we need to go."

Even as he said it, he was aware of an oddness about the words. Of course there was somewhere he needed to go, but… where was it again? It wasn't Hogwarts – he'd just _been_ there! It was –

The tannoy sounded again, a voice announcing through crackling static that a train was now arriving at Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters. The crowd started to move again, surging towards the doors this time.

_IF YOU DON'T HURRY._ _YOU'RE UNLIKELY TO GET A SEAT._ The Guard offered, _ IT'S A LONG JOURNEY IF YOU'RE STANDING. _

"But I don't know where I'm going!" Snape's voice suddenly sounded not at all like his own. The terrifying, commanding air he'd spent _years_ practicing in the mirror deserted him for a moment.

_SURELY YOU DON'T WANT TO STAY AT HOGWARTS?_ The Guard's gaze – through _eyes_, Snape reminded himself again, and certainly not empty eye-sockets – was not an unkind one. _THERE'S ONLY TWO PLACES THE HOGWARTS TRAIN GOES, LAD, AND ONE OF THEM'S HOGWARTS._

He gestured again to the train. The platform was emptying quickly now as people scrambled on. _BEST HURRY. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS IT._

"Long time before you can get another, is it?" Snape asked, aware that he was delaying. There was nothing at all that felt safe about boarding a train to an unknown destination and just trusting that everything would be okay.

The Guard's expression grimaced into – was that a smile? With his face, it was hard to tell. _IT CAN BE YEARS. SOME PEOPLE NEVER GET ANOTHER._

He started to move towards the train, and Snape found himself following, moving on legs that didn't seem quite as long as the ones he was used to, having to double his strides to keep up.

He hesitated again at the door, and the Guard nodded to him again. _QUICK NOW, BEFORE I BLOW THE WHISTLE._

Snape glanced back, looking over the now empty station, eyes fixing on a solitary red-headed figure, now slumped on one of the benches. "_He's_ not going!"

The Guard followed his gaze, and shrugged calmly. _HE'S WAITING FOR SOMEONE. HE'LL GO WHEN THEY GET HERE._

"But you said it could be years!" Snape protested, aware even as he said it of how childish he sounded.

_YES._ The Guard agreed simply, and propelled Snape onto the train as though he weighed nothing at all, closing the door behind him.

The whistle blew, and the train started to move, pulling slowly out of the station. Snape sat down quickly, staring out of the window at the Guard who waved cheerily to him, as though they were old friends.

It wasn't an unfamiliar position to be in, and he leaned back in his seat, remembering so many other journeys like this. He remembered the rush of exultation he would have felt at this once, knowing that he was leaving, pulling away from Hogwarts at the boys who tormented him there, going home to a glorious summer where Houses didn't matter and there was no-one at all to prevent a Slytherin boy playing with a Gryffindor girl. There'd been problems with his father, and Petunia of course, but it had never been too hard to avoid them. Not when they'd _really_ wanted to.

"Is this seat taken?"

He looked up startled by a voice he hadn't heard in years, and met the gaze of a pair of brilliant green eyes.

Oh. Of course. Of _course_.

"Not for you." He responded with a smile in his voice that would have startled his students , sitting up a little straighter suddenly.

There were only two places the Hogwarts train went after all, and they had already _been_ to Hogwarts.

Laughing, chatting, lost in conversation in a way he hadn't been in decades, Snape – no, _Sev - _ went home.

Forever.


	2. Mischief Managed

_YOU KNOW, YOU COULD GET THIS TRAIN IF YOU WANTED. HE WOULD CATCH YOU UP EASILY ENOUGH._

"No." Fred shook his head, "I'll wait. He'll come."

Well, there was no arguing with that. _SOONER OR LATER, EVERYBODY DOES._

It was hard to tell how long they had been waiting. Time didn't seem to work the same way here. Fred had drunk more cups of disgustingly orange vending machine tea than he could count, had seen group after group wait to pile onto the trains.

They were always, without exception, late. He couldn't understand that once he'd figured out where he was, couldn't work out why trains _here_ should get delayed. He's tried to get an explanation from the Guard, and gotten a long steady stare for his trouble. The Guard was good at those.

_THERE ARE LEAVES ON THE LINE._

"_What_ line? I'm not sure there's even a line that _exists_ to come here!"

_THEY ARE TRAINS. _The Guard explained patiently and deliberately. _AND SO THEY ARE LATE DUE TO LEAVES ON THE LINE._

"And so if they weren't late?"

The Guard shrugged, _THEY WOULD NOT BE TRAINS. TRAINS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT._

If George were here, the conversation would have ended differently. He would have had a question, some sort of teasing query for the Guard, and by the time the Guard had answered, Fred would have thought of another, and they could have bounced from one to the other until the Guard grew tired of the both of them.

But George wasn't here, and without him, Fred ran out of words. He hesitated, and it took a moment for him to realise that that was _why_ he was hesitating, waiting for his twin to fill the gap in conversation.

By the time he remembered that that wasn't going to happen, the Guard had gone.

"I'm _Fred_, not George. Honestly, mother, you'd think by now.."

It was a joke that they'd repeated a million times, almost since they'd been old enough to talk. Only when the room fell silent, and he looked up to see every face turned to him, expressions anxious and pitying, did George remember why it wasn't funny any more.

He saw that expression a lot over the months that followed, when he dropped something because the person he was passing it to wasn't there, when he turned to make a comment only to find the space beside him empty, even when he did nothing at all. Sorrowful looks, looks that saw a broken half when they looked at him, not a full person at all.

He had to learn to remember – it was almost a case of self-defence. He had to do _something_ to stop people looking at him like that. Especially when he looked in the mirror.

Time passed, and slowly people began to know him as George, rather than one half of Fred-and-George. He'd never had that before, and had to learn to introduce himself all over again, without automatically introducing his brother. The younger ones – Ron and Ginny's kids – knew Fred as nothing more than a story, a heroic uncle who'd died in the war.

Fred would have laughed at that picture.

He didn't tell them, any of them, that he talked to his brother still, alone in the workshop, away where no-one could hear. He didn't tell them about the conversations he had, laughingly recounting the days events as he pieced pranks together, talking as though he'd never lost Fred at all.

Sometimes he wondered if the ear he'd lost was listening to the brother he'd lost talking back.

There were other people waiting here. Fred hadn't been the only one left behind when the whistle blew. Mostly they didn't seem to notice each other much, but the twins had always been in the habit of watching people, in case they did something interesting. It was a hard habit for Fred to fall out of.

It wasn't, he decided after watching for a while, that they were invisible. It was simply that they behaved so ordinarily, so quietly, that they faded into the background. It is not in human nature to take much notice of people who quietly get on with their own business.

The Guard was the one who seemed to attract the most attention. He moved quietly through the station's passengers, talking to those waiting, urging them onto trains where needed, delivering help here and there.

Once Fred saw him carrying something – he couldn't have named what it was. No-one else seemed to notice as the shrieking naked _thing_ was carried between them. Fred stared for a moment before curiosity kicked in and he chased after the Guard, dodging through people who barely seemed to know that he was there.

By the time Fred reached him, the thing was gone, and the Guard was talking earnestly to a woman with wild black hair. They looked up as he approached, and Fred stared, trying to recall where he had seen her before. She returned his gaze with a sneer, before turning to stalk away.

The Guard turned his attention to Fred, _CAN I HELP YOU?_

Yes. Yes, he could. Fred was full of questions, and he had to take a moment to catch his breath, raking red hair back with his hand. "What was that thing?"

_IT HAD NO TICKET. _The Guard answered the question with a calm shrug of his shoulders, as though that should settle everything.

It took a moment for Fred to realise that he had again been waiting for George to continue the conversation, and he spoke quickly, anxious that the Guard should not simply walk away again. "These people – that woman – what was she asking for?"

_THE DESTINATION OF THE NEXT TRAIN. _The Guard glanced away to the bench the woman had settled, apparently engrossed in a timetable, _IT IS DUE IN FIVE MINUTES, IF YOU WISH TO BOARD. BUT IT WILL BE LATE. _

The destination? Remembering in time that he would have to ask himself this time, Fred opened his mouth, but the Guard was already speaking.

_EVERY TRAIN THAT COMES SHE ASKS, AND EVERY TIME I TELL HER. THE TRAIN ONLY GOES TO TWO DESTINATIONS, AND ONE OF THOSE IS HOGWARTS. SHE WILL NOT BOARD WITHOUT KNOWING THE OTHER, AND SO SHE STAYS. _The Guard sighed, and looked back at Fred, _BUT YOU… YOU WILL BOARD THE TRAIN, YES?_

Slowly, Fred shook his head, "No, I have to wait for my brother." He managed a smile, the ghost of his usual grin. "Daft git'd probably get the wrong train without me."

The Guard's stare was implacable. _THE TRAIN ONLY HAS TWO DESTINATIONS. _

The shop was always busy. That never changed, and perhaps it never would. It didn't matter which generation it was serving, there was always some child begging for a minor curse or prank that would keep them out of class, annoy a classmate, or just add disruption to a formerly orderly world.

Sometimes there were siblings, and they could make Georges heart hurt with their closeness. The sight of an older brother, puffed up with self-importance as he showed younger siblings around the shop, or a pair with their heads bent close together, marvelling over the mischief a trick might help them bring, and sometimes he would have to hurry into the back and ask an assistant to take over.

No-one had ever questioned it, and at least now he could blame old age and tiredness for those moments.

That tiredness had been more genuine of late. It was a little shocking - he had never thought once that he would complain of the noise and exuberance of youth being too much! But they could be overwhelming, and so George slipped away from the shop, back to his rooms, to rest. The assistants could handle it – they always did, although sometimes they looked at him a little pityingly now, as though wondering why an old man should devote himself so thoroughly to making something as inconsequential as children's tricks.

They would never understood that sometimes when he perfected a trick for the first time, or a tale came back from the school of teachers exasperated by a particularly masterful usage of one, George fancied he could hear Fred laughing right along with him.

But for now… it was time to rest.

Alone in his rooms, George closed his eyes and slipped softly into the final sleep. Mischief managed.

The last batch of people had boarded their train, and Fred had slumped back onto his bench, staring after them. It wasn't a comfortable bench – he had asked once _why_ they were so cursedly uncomfortable, and received an answer much like the one about the leaves. It seemed that in this station, the epitome of all stations, trains were always late, tea was always orange, and benches were always uncomfortable. That was just the way things were.

_YOU COULD CATCH THE NEXT TRAIN._ The Guard suggested again, just as he had every time one had pulled away. _THERE ARE NOT SO MANY PEOPLE ARRIVING NOW. THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF SEATS. _

Fed shook his head, just as he had every other time. "I'll wait. It's not going to the right place anyway."

_THERE ARE ONLY TWO PLA-_ The Guard began, but Fred interrupted.

"No. If George isn't there, it isn't the right place."

"If I'm not where?" The voice came from the station entrance, and Fred whirled towards it, eyes widening. "Honestly, you're not very good at missing people, are you? The amount of time I've been standing here, you might at least have _noticed_."

The face, the freckles, the hair were the same, all a perfect echo of Fred's own. George leaned against the entrance, privately delighting in a body without aches and pains, a body that hadn't felt so good for decades. Even both ears were intact.

Fred stared at him, as though not quite believing his eyes, "Really?"

"Nah." George broke into a grin, striding towards him, "Only appeared a moment ago. Just yanking your wand."

The hug was brief, and when they broke apart, neither seemed to quite know what to say for a moment. They stared at each other awkwardly for a second. "_I missed you_" was too obvious, "_I love you" _too girly, and it wasn't as though either of them didn't know both of those things already.

"You had to leave me in the awkward position, didn't you?" George managed finally, accusingly.

"Awkward?" Fred stared at him for a moment, as though unsure how to react.

"Yeah well, people kept asking you how you were. Didn't they? And it seemed a bit cruel to just _tell_ them "Oh, he's dead", and I kept thinking "Well, maybe I should just work up to it, like – tell them you'd got yourself injured, and then add that it was quite badly injured, and then just say "Well, actually, he's dead" so it wasn't so much of a shock…"

Fred snorted with laughter. "What, inside ten minutes like that?"

"Yeah, and you just _try_ laughing at that thought, and see how loony they think you." But George was grinning, because really it didn't matter now, did it?

The Guard had kept his distance for a moment or so, allowing a tactful amount of time before he approached. _THE TRAIN-_

"Yeah, I know, we need to get the next train that comes." Fred didn't wait for him to finish, but addressed his twin, "Honestly, George, he's been on at me for _hours_ trying to stuff me onto every train that passes. You might have hurried it up a bit!"

He didn't catch the look of shock on his twin's face for a moment, and George opened his mouth to correct him, tell him that the time could be better measured in years rather than hours, and stopped himself. What did it matter, as long as they were both here now?

_ACTUALLY, I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU THAT YOU WILL BOTH HAVE TO WAIT A WHILE._ The Guard explained, without a hint of irony. _THE TRAIN HAS BEEN DELAYED. LEAVES ON THE LINE._


	3. The Station Clock Said 12

The station clock said 12.

The two boys at the edge of the platform had been annoying the Guard for quite some time now. It was the way of teenage boys, he supposed, to be loud and irritating. He just wished they wouldn't do it in his station.

At one point he'd only appeared in the nick of time, just managing to grab the black-haired boy's shirt before he went tumbling off the platform onto the rails. He'd been trying, apparently, to drop a penny onto the track to see what would happen when the train came.

Merlin only knew where they'd even _found_ a penny here. It had been enough to make him request that both boys empty their pockets, and several other interesting tricks had been confiscated.

They had ignored his hopeful hints that the next train was due in only a few minutes, and some time after that he had had to hurry over to stop them defacing the timetables. They had been, they said, correcting them to the time the train _actually_ arrived, rather than the time it was _meant_ to arrive.

And now… a loud yowl attracted the Guard's attention, and he arrived on the scene just in time to have the station cat attempt to climb up his legs. He picked it up, immune to any scratches it might deliver.

_ALL PASSENGERS WILL REMAIN IN THEIR NATURAL FORM WHILE IN THE STATION, PLEASE. _He said sharply, petting the upset cat. _AND IF YOU BOYS CHOOSE NOT TO DO SO, YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE STATION._

Not that there was anywhere to remove them to, of course, but he had to keep a semblance of order somehow.

It was enough of a threat to make them transform back quickly, though the cat didn't calm down once the large black dog had vanished.

"Sorry, sir." The one who had been a stag explained, "We were just practicing for when our friend gets here."

_YOUR FRIEND CAN STAY IN HIS OWN SHAPE TOO, WHEN HE ARRIVES. ESPECIALLY IF HIS OTHER SHAPE IS A DOG. _It took a lot to really upset the Guard, but he was glaring at them now, still cradling the cat.

"See, well, sometimes he doesn't have much choice…" the boy started to explain, but his friend interrupted, pointing past him.

"There he is – there! Hey, Moony! _Moony!_"

There was an answering whoop from the station entrance, and a third boy – _three _of them now to cause mess, and noise, and havoc, the Guard noted – came running up to meet them.

"You two getting in trouble without me? Even _here?"_

"Well, it has been an awfully long wait. Especially for Prongs." The other two boys grinned at him, then looked back at the guard.

"May we go, sir?" The one referred to as Prongs asked hopefully, "I promise we won't scare your cat any more."

The Guard sighed, _WILL YOU GET ON THE NEXT TRAIN?_

"Yeah, I suppose so – hey, we're not waiting for Wormtail, are we?"

The question drew a scowl from the newest boy, "Padfoot, I do _hope_ you're joking."

Prongs grinned, his face alight with mischief for a moment, "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure we've all got some things we've been waiting to say to him." He glanced at the Guard's face, which was less than amused – at least as far as you could tell on a face like that – and sobered up, "Yeah, yeah, we'll get the next train."

_GOOD. _The Guard turned, and would have gone, had Padfoot not caught at his sleeve.

"Sir, your cat – is it a familiar? Or an animagus? Or a kneazle?"

The Guard gazed at him blankly for a moment or two – he was good at blank looks – before glancing down at the cat in his arms. _NO._ He said carefully, in a voice usually used for speaking to the very slow and very stupid. _IT'S A CAT. I LIKE CATS._

He left them then, taking the cat away to his office for comfort and milk. When he looked again, the trio were gone, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

It wasn't that he didn't like teenage boys. It was just that they were easier to like from a _distance_.

The station clock said 12.

The young woman standing at the station's Meeting Point kept glancing around anxiously, her hair light blue and spiky with worry. It was a good idea, the Meeting Point, somewhere people could arrange to find each other without the worry they might miss each other on what was, in the end, a rather large and busy platform. The crowds could be mesmerising as they ebbed and flowed whenever a train pulled in late to the station.

But the Meeting Point meant, if you were waiting there, and someone didn't come, it wasn't an accident. They hadn't missed you, they hadn't got lost. They had simply chosen not to come.

Tonks suspected that some of the people standing with her had been waiting centuries, even if _they_ hadn't quite realised that yet. On first arriving she had gotten into animated conversation with a lady named Rowena, had experienced a moment of thrilling excitement upon realising that it was indeed _the_ Rowena, and had felt that excitement abruptly drain away when she realised just how long the lady had been standing there, patiently waiting for her daughter.

She would have had to have been blind, or stupid, or both to have missed how quickly Lupin's affections had cooled off when she had announced her pregnancy, and Tonks was neither. He had gone away, but he had come back. He had come _back_, and she had used that fact to calm any worries she had had at the time. He had had his choice, and he had made it.

Here though, it seemed suddenly less reassuring. What if the only reason he had come back was because of the child? What if she were already too late – what if Lupin had stood at this very meeting point and been distracted before she arrived, dragged away by two friends, or perhaps even just one?

She had never felt jealous of Sirius while he was _alive _but that thoughtsent a spurt through her that shocked her in its intensity, and turned her hair bright red.

Rowena, still standing next to her, eyed her in surprise, "That's very pretty, dear." She offered benignly, "But are you quite all right?"

She started to nod automatically, and then found herself shaking her head instead. "The person I'm waiting for – my husband – I think he might have gone off with his friends instead," She admitted forlornly. "I mean, he didn't while he was _alive_, but they weren't alive either then, and now they're _all_ dead, well…"

Rowena looked at her calmly, her expression saying that this was nothing that she had not heard a hundred times before already. "Did he love you, dear?"

Tonks hesitated. "Yes. But he might have loved his friends _more_, or..."

"Tch. This isn't a place where you have to worry about _more_, dear. Not once you get here." Rowena shook her head, "You'll see. If he loved you, then he'll come to you."

"And if he loved them?"

"Then he'll go to them." The woman caught Tonks' puzzled expression and laughed, giving a quick shake of her head, "I told you, dear. You don't have to worry about _more_ here. Time doesn't happen the same way anymore. A circle has no end or beginning so there is never just one destination even if there is one ticket."

"I still don't see _how_…" It wasn't an easy concept to get your head around, and Tonks was starting to protest again when she broke off with a yelp of surprise. Something cold was nudging against her and then there was licking against her hand.

Rowena smiled at her brightly. "He's been standing staring at you for some time, dear. I didn't like to say anything, in case he wasn't the one you were looking for. It _is_ him, isn't it?"

"He…" Tonks was dazed for a moment, looking at her wet hand, and then down again at the wolf by her side. Not a werewolf any more, nothing left of that compulsion that tore him apart save the real animal looking up at her with Remus' eyes that held a relish of controlling the form that had so long controlled him. It was a moment before she smiled radiantly, hair lightening to a cheery bubblegum pink. "Yes. Yes, it is."

The wolf wagged his tail, light and wild but choosing her, coming back to _her._

"I should hurry then, dear, or you'll miss your train." Rowena advised, "It's meant to arrive on the hour, but not to worry. It's always late."

Lupin seemed to agree, running forward a few steps, then sitting down to wait for Tonks to catch up, his tongue lolling in a wolfish equivalent of laughter.

She went to follow, and then turned, not wanting to forget Rowena as she called back, "I hope you find your daughter!"

The woman smiled back at her placidly, and waved. "She'll come eventually, dear, and I'll be here when she does. For as long as it takes."

The station clock said 12.

A small girl with pink hair was petting the station cat. She looked up with a bright smile as the Guard approached her, not at all intimidated. "Hullo! I like your cat!"

_INDEED. _The Guard studied her carefully, taking in the torn dungarees, the chocolate stained fingers and mouth, the colourful hair. _I THINK PERHAPS YOU ARE MEANT TO BE WITH SOMEONE. WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SMALL GIRL?_

"Dora." The child got to her feet, brushing cat hair from her dungarees. The cat, realising there was to be no more petting just for now, stared reproachfully at the Guard for a moment or two and then wandered away.

Dora stared at the Guard critically for a moment or two. "Your face is all funny."

There were few people in the station with eyes that would allow them to see the Guard's true face, and those who did usually had different words to describe the grinning skull than "funny". He raised a bony hand to touch it, unusually self-conscious for a moment. _DO YOU THINK SO?_

"Yes." Dora nodded firmly, then stopped, seeming to remember that this behaviour might not be quite described as _polite_. "It's okay though. I can make my face funny too. Look!"

The Guard stared at the small skull, still with a healthy head of bright pink hair, that appeared in front of him, for once seeming lost for words. _SO YOU CAN. _He managed after a moment, _WELL, WELL, WELL._

"I don't get how you've got your hands though." Dora squinted at them critically, "Why don't the little bones fall off without bits to stick them together?"

The Guard looked down at his hands as though he had never seen them before, wiggling skeletal fingers for a moment before he found his voice again. _I THINK PERHAPS WE NEED TO GET YOU BACK TO YOUR PARENTS._

"I don't think Mummy's here yet." Dora offered, still eying the Guard, as though searching out other ways she could try to improve him.

_YOUR FATHER THEN. COME ALONG. _Firmly the Guard reached to take her small hand in his, marching Dora along the platform.

Dora's father turned out to be a large blonde man, rather overweight, who seemed not at all surprised by the idea that his only daughter had turned into a small skeleton. He started running towards them the moment he caught sight of the girl, and snatched her into a bear-hug, only releasing her a second later when a small muffled voice complained, "Daddy, you're _squashing_ me!"

"Sorry, lovey." Reluctantly, the man lowered her to the ground, then managed a slightly stern look, "Though I've told you before, Dora. If the wind changes, your face will stick like that."

"Yes, Daddy." The face twisted and changed again, back into the face of a normal, impish, seven year old, albeit one who now had purple hair.

The Guard watched the scene, slightly bemused but accepting. You got used to seeing odd things in this job. _MAY I LEAVE HER WITH YOU, SIR? SHE'S A LITTLE SMALL TO BE WANDERING AROUND THE PLATFORM ON HER OWN, AND THE TRAIN IS DUE SOON._

"Oh, of course, of course." The man glanced down at his errant daughter, and lowered his voice, "I'm very sorry you were troubled at all. I'd have been keeping an eye out for her, but I thought she'd be going with someone else. "

The Guard glanced down at the girl again. Dora stuck her tongue out at him, turned it lime green, then crossed her eyes. _I EXPECT SHE DID, SIR._

The man stared at him uncertainly, "I hardly think she'd have had _time_ to go with him, and come back…"

The Guard sighed. This was always the part people struggled with. _NO SIR. SHE WENT WITH HIM NOW, AND SHE IS HERE WITH YOU NOW. _

"There are two of her?"

"No, Daddy." It was the child's turn to correct, impatient at a parent not understanding something she had already wrapped her own mind around. "There's only one _me_, silly. But it's always _now_ wherever I am. Time just stopped working the same." She peered up at the Guard, cocking her head to one side, "That is right, isn't it?"

_MORE OR LESS._ The Guard agreed.

Dora's father seemed to need a moment longer to work through it. "Like a Time Turner?" he suggested eventually.

_A LITTLE LIKE THAT._ The Guard agreed, _EXCEPT YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO PAY BACK THE TIME WHICH IS BORROWED AND YOU ARE ALWAYS THE PINCH IN THE GLASS REGARDLESS OF HOW THE SAND FALLS. _He glanced towards the line, attention diverted, _I HAVE TO GO. THE TRAIN WILL BE COMING. _

Behind him, Ted Tonks' hand tightened around his daughter's. "Not this one just yet for us, Dora darling. We have to wait for Mummy."

The station clock said 12:15.

The train arrived.


	4. Ticket to Ride

The Guard had had to deal with many issues in the past – the lost, the confused, the angry and trains never arriving on time. A station guard's life was never a quiet one, especially at _this_ platform.

A rat in the vending machine however, was a whole new issue.

At least they didn't have to worry about visits from health inspectors here – or about disease for that matter. Still, it was likely that passengers would complain _even more_ if they found tiny teethmarks on their snacks, and so he carefully unscrewed the front of the machine, opening it up.

The unfortunate rodent tried to escape, scrabbling to hide behind the chocolate bars. However, as generations of wizards had already found out, there was no way to hide or escape from _this_ Guard. Sooner or later, he would always catch up with you.

He stood up, holding the struggling rodent between finger and thumb, and looked at it thoughtfully.

_HMM._

The rat squeaked pitifully, and tried to escape, kicking and wriggling. The Guard took no notice however, calmly carrying the animal back to his office.

The office was a place few passengers ever got to see into, and the Guard carefully shut behind him to preserve that inner sanctum before he dropped the rat unceremoniously on top on his desk.

_IS THIS YOURS?_

There was a scratching noise from a large box with _Lost Property _scrawled across the front, and a moment later, the head of a skeletal rat popped up.

The Guard did not appear to find this at all surprising.

_SQUEAK._ The small skeleton looked at the rat on the desk, and shook its head, _SQUEAK EEK SQUEAK._

_I SEE._ Again, the Guard scrutinised the rat on his desk, and reached as though to pick it up.

That, it seemed, was too much for the rat. It squeaked again, and backed away over the desk, trying to avoid his bony fingers. That drew an interested _meow _from the station cat who was watching the little animal with great interest. At that noise the rat jerked, gave a shiver, and a moment later had transformed into a short, quivering man. He rolled off the desk, and made a hasty dash for the door, looking panicked when he realised it was locked.

"What's _that_?" It is perhaps a sign you have spent too long in rat form when the object of terror you gesture to first is the cat, rather then the very small animated skeleton.

_IT'S A CAT._ Something in the Guard's tone said that nothing good was coming from criticising the black and white tom who was currently eying the man as though trying to weigh up whether or not he was now too big to pounce. _I LIKE CATS._

"Oh." The man said weakly, keeping his back to the door, eyes on the cat. "I see."

_I TEND TO PREFER THAT PASSENGERS KEEP THEIR OWN SHAPES WHILE ON THE PLATFORM. _ The Guard commented, watching him quite calmly from behind the desk, _ALSO, YOU APPEAR TO HAVE GNAWED THE PLATFORM'S GALAXY BARS. WHY IS THIS?_

"It wasn't my fault. I didn't _mean_ to!" The little man's voice wasn't much less shrill that the rat's squeaking had been.

_AND YET YOU WERE THE ONE IN THE VENDING MACHINE._ The Guard observed. He eyed the man's right arm, which appeared to cut off abruptly at the wrist. _WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAND, PERSON-WHO-IS-ALSO-A-A-RAT?_

"Peter. It's Peter." The man looked down at the missing appendage, and flushed, "I uh.. I lost it. It wasn't my fault!" he added defensively, as though expecting the Guard to accuse him of something, "Someone made me, and I was scared, and…"

The Guard stood up abruptly, and Peter cowered back, looking terrified. It seemed though, that the Guard was only on the way to the _Lost and Found_ box. He lifted the rat skeleton out first, and then delved deeply, bringing out such oddities as an ear, what looked like some monstrous baby – still crying as he set it on the desk - and a bag full of marbles.

Peter shuddered, paling as he heard the crying, and tried not to look at the baby, but the Guard was holding something out to him.

_THIS, I BELIEVE, IS YOURS. _He advised, offering Peter a disembodied hand. A moment later he pulled a finger out of the bottom of the box, and handed that to Peter as well, looking at him as though this was an everyday occurrence.

Peter took them, not sure quite what to do with them, but feeling that it was the expected thing to do. He needn't have worried. The flesh wasn't cold and dead as he had expected, but warm. The hand twisted in his grip, and he gave a yell of surprise, almost dropping it. It pulled determinedly though, tugging on his left hand until it reached his empty right wrist where it reattached itself, sealing the flesh as though it had never been apart. The finger behaved similarly.

_YOU SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL WITH YOUR BODY PARTS. _The Guard remarked, watching as the event took place. _IT IS NOT AS THOUGH THEY GROW ON TREES. ONLY ON HUMANS. HA HA HA._

Peter laughed weakly, and eyed the door again. Even if the Guard seemed friendly enough, he was not someone most people wished to stay in close proximity to for long.

Still, while he was here, there was something he should ask. "The trains on the platform, where do they go?"

_ONLY TO HOGWARTS, AND TO ONE OTHER PLACE._ The Guard gave him the same answer he gave all of his passengers.

"I know that, but which other place? Is it the same for everyone?" Now he had two hands again, Peter was free to wring them anxiously, shifting from one foot to the other, "It's just that I had these friends, and I did something, and they might not understand why, and so I really don't want to go to the same place as they do. And there are… other people I want to avoid too – not my fault, not my fault, but no-one _understands._ And I'm a little worried the train might not understand either, and send me to the wrong place – but you _must_ be able to tell me where it would take me, surely?"

The Guard's expression was not an unkind one, but he shook his head slowly. _I AM SORRY. IT WAS NOT ME WHO PURCHASED THE TICKET._

And that it seemed was the only answer he was going to get.

Perhaps after that incident Peter should have known to keep to his human shape. He had gotten used to the rat form being better for hiding and protection though. When a familiar trio of boys came by, too wrapped up in their own conversation to notice Peter at first sight, it was instinct to slip back into that other shape and scurry to hide himself, squeezing under the tea machine.

It wasn't his fault, it _hadn't_ been his fault, but that didn't mean he was ready to explain that to them yet. They wouldn't understand. They never had.

It seemed he had been seen darting under the machine however. As soon as he poked his nose out from under the machine he was seized, and he squealed frantically as he was dragged out and into the air.

He changed back in mid-air and fell to earth with a thud. A white owl released the back of his shirt and flew to the top of the station. She stared down and hooted at him reproachfully.

It seemed even the _pets_ of the Marauders' family were trying to get him now. Life didn't get much worse than that. Not did death for that matter.

"That would be a pyschopomp." The voice addressing him seemed to come from Peter's feet. "She was only trying to make you get on the train. Well, that or break your neck before devouring you. It's a bit hard to tell with the owl ones sometimes."

Peter looked down. A raven was standing there, looking up at him. Next to it was the skeletal rat from the Guard's office. It waved up at him, in what appeared to be a friendly manner.

_SQUEAK. _

"My friend, the rat here," The raven said, "Says that he realises he has no _official_ jurisdiction over you, so to speak, what with you not being a real rat and all. However, he would very much appreciate you getting the train, if only because he'll be the one that gets blamed when you widdle in the tea machine."

Wizards are meant to get used to surreal situations fairly quickly. Even so, Peter couldn't help staring a little.

"But I didn't widdle in the tea machine!" he protested, "I think the tea's actually _meant_ to taste like that!"

_SQUEAK._

"The rat says he appreciates that, and that many people might say that rat widdle might indeed improve the flavour of tea from this particular machine. However, the next train will be along in ten minutes, and he really would be very grateful if you were on it. He's got this territorial rat-thing going on, you see?"

"You got all of that, just from _SQUEAK?"_

"He's good at being succinct."

"I see," Peter continued staring. As far as his senses could tell, this was no transfiguration, no illusion. Just a completely normal talking raven and rat skeleton. Because yeah, that was _normal._

He shook himself, as though coming out of a dream, and continued, "In any case, I _can't_ get the train. There's some things – they weren't my fault, but…"

"Going back to Hogwarts then?" The raven asked conversationally, "I hear they've always got room for another ghost over there."

Peter hesitated. Appealing as the idea of escaping to a known destination was, the idea of being eternally trapped at Hogwarts, on display as a ghost for everyone to see for all eternity, was not so inviting. Could Death Eaters hurt ghosts? Could Dementors? Could Harry Potter? He didn't know, but if any one of those three could… he shivered.

"No." he said slowly, "I don't think so."

"Then you'll be wanting to get the train." The raven insisted, "It's the only other place you _can_ go."

"I suppose so." Peter agreed without enthusiasm. He scratched his head unhappily, rubbing a hand over his bald patch, "What would _you_ do if you were here, and had nowhere left to go?"

"Hey, don't ask me, friend. I never signed up for that whole pyschopomp lark. Not enough eyeballs. Leave that to the owls and sparrows." The bird said hastily, "No, I'm just here to pass a message. Provide a translation service as it were."

_SQUEAK._

"The rat says that if you want to stay here, that's up to you, but if you widdle on his territory he'll chew your finger back off."

Being caught once as a rat was unfortunate, but twice should really have been a warning not to do it again. This time, however, it was Bellatrix Lestrange who frightened Peter. The black-haired woman was some distance from Peter, examining train timetables, but once glance at her was enough to send him shrinking down into rat shape.

This time, he didn't even get chance to flee under the nearest piece of furniture. The station cat had been watching Peter oddly since the office incident, and it was quite delighted to get the chance to pounce. There wasn't much prey to be found on Platform Nine-And-A-Three-Quarters, so it really had to take it where it could.

Of course, Peter could have changed back to human form again, but compared to a game of cat-and-mouse with Bellatrix, the same game with an actual _cat_ seemed almost gentle in comparison. At least cats didn't look on Unforgivables as light recreation. He curled up tightly, closed his eyes, and hoped to be safely out of Bellatrix's sight before he had actually been disembowelled.

This time, however, he was lucky enough to be rescued.

"Bad kitty then. Come here, kitty, give Rowena the nice mousie." The voice was female, and kind hands gently took Peter from the cat's mouth, smoothing his fur down before setting him down on the ground. Peter stayed curled up, not opening his eyes, half-afraid to see who it was. If there was something his life had taught him was that things could always get worse.

It seemed there was no escaping though. A wand tapped him firmly on the back. "Come on then, dear. The cat's gone now. Let's see who you _really_ are."

Despite his determination to stay in rodent form, Peter's shape twitched, quivered and _grew_ stretching back into his own body – though he was still crouched on the floor with his hands over his head. He opened his eyes, found himself looking up at nothing more frightening than an elderly woman, and stood up awkwardly.

"That's better, dear." Rowena nodded approvingly, "It's much better to be a man than a mouse. What were you hiding from? You'll miss the train if you don't hurry."

"It's a rat not a mouse." Peter blurted defensively, and flushed. "And I'm not getting the train."

"I see," Rowena didn't seem surprised by this somehow. She looked Peter up and down, sharp brown eyes taking in every detail, "Waiting for someone, are you?"

Peter shook his head.

"Ah. Waiting for some_thing_ then?"

Again, Peter shook his head, "I just… I can't get the train. There's… some people who blame me for something – something that wasn't my fault. I can't go to the same place as them. But I can't go back to Hogwarts either. Really, I don't know _where_ to go."

"Perhaps then you are looking for something, and do not know what it is yet." Rowena decided. She looked Peter up and down once more, and then took his shoulder firmly, propelling him to the nearest bench. "Sit down, dear. People rarely think as well standing up. Now, tell me about these people."

This part Peter hated. It was so _hard_ to tell the story in a way that showed how it wasn't his fault. He looked down, half-tempted to try the rat trick again, then saw the station cat eying him hungrily from a few metres away.

Perhaps better not to in that case then.

"I had some friends." He said quietly, "A long time ago now. And they trusted me – I was meant to be their Secret Keeper – and I betrayed them. But it wasn't my fault!"

"No?" There was no condemnation in Rowena's brown eyes, only gentle curiosity. "Tell me then."

"The person I told – their enemy – I was afraid. I just thought – I _knew_ he was going to win. I _knew_ we were all going to die when he did and I just thought… I thought if we were all going to die anyway, then maybe it would be better if at least _one_ of us didn't." Peter shifted on his bench. The explanation never sounded quite the same way out loud as it did in his head.

"Ah. But it wasn't your fault?"

"I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't believed we were going to lose!" Peter protested, even though Rowena seemed to give nothing to protest _against_. Her expression stayed the same – calm, patient, listening to what he had to say. "I mean, what did they want me to do? Die?"

"I see." The old woman nodded, still passing no judgement on the whole affair.

"And then afterwards, it was like they were _sorry_ I wasn't dead." Peter went on, "And, and, well of _course_ I went back to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I had no choice! Even _he_ knew that!"

"But it wasn't your fault?"

Peter stared at his new hand miserably, fingering the place where the wrist joined, where there really _should_ have been a scar… and wasn't. It was the fear, his life had been a study in fear and in the end the fear had always been stronger than any faith in himself. "Well," he admitted very quietly, for the first time, even to himself. "Maybe it was a _little_ my fault."

Rowena just looked at him, as though waiting for more.

"I was afraid – I always get myself in such a _mess_ when I'm afraid. And they knew that – all the Marauders knew that!" he said, voice turning angry and defensive again, "It was their fault – why did they even _make_ me their Secret-Keeper, knowing that? They made me choose!"

The old lady didn't flinch back or react to Peter's anger, but held his gaze with those calm, patient brown eyes, "Perhaps," she suggested softly, "They trusted you. More than you trusted yourself."

"Yes." Peter dropped his head into his hands, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. "Merlin. I wish they hadn't."

"No-one can undo what is already done." Rowena informed him, her voice kindly, "Not even here. All anyone can do is work with what they have. That is the rule."

"That was what started the whole stupid mess." Peter admitted, "Sirius was meant to be their Secret-Keeper – they should have kept it like that. It would have been _fine_ like that. Then they switched it, and I just thought "But what if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named comes looking for _me_? I wouldn't be able to resist, then all of us would die." He ran his fingers through his hair again, not noticing when this time they failed to find the bald spot. "Then after than, things just kept getting worse. I just... I couldn't seem to _stop_ it!"

He could remember it still – all the papers headlining that Voldemort was winning, that he was _bound_ to win, and the creeping, sick knowledge dogging his every step, that he had information that the Dark Lord would – quite literally – kill for. How could he keep that secret, knowing what would happen to him when it was found out?

_Sirius would have._ A treacherous little voice inside Peter's head noted, and he winced, trying to bury the thought. He looked at Rowena helplessly. "I spent over a decade as a rat. Isn't that punishment enough?"

"I don't know." Rowena turned the question back to him, "Is it?"

Peter was quiet for a long moment. It seemed harder here somehow to tell yourself lies, harder still when facing a train that was likely to ignore all attempts of self-justification. "Probably not." He admitted eventually, "Do you see now why I can't get the train?"

Rowena looked at him for a moment, her head slightly to one side, before she nodded, "Come with me."

For an old lady she was surprisingly nimble, and Peter found himself having to hurry to keep up with her quick steps. "Where are we going?"

"Look," Rowena gestured in answer, across to where a woman was speaking to the guard. From the expression on her face, she wasn't liking the answers she was getting either.

Recognising the woman, Peter shrank back, "That's Bellatrix Lestrange!" he whispered, voice going up into a frightened squeak, "I can't let her see me!"

"Oh, she won't notice you, dear. She's far too caught up in her own affairs." The old woman shook her head, "Every day the train comes, and every day I see her ask the Guard where it's going, and yet somehow when it leaves the platform she's always still here, always still looking after it. You tell me why that should be?"

It was a revelation that made Peter stare a little. It was one thing for _him_ to be stuck here, but quite another for someone as powerful as Bellatrix. "But she's one of the strongest witches alive – uh, dead now I guess."

"Oh sweetheart, if power mattered here, I would have gone home with my daughter centuries ago." Rowena chuckled a little sadly. "But that one… she could have gone home long ago, if only she would let herself. I saw her sister once – pretty girl, looks a lot like your Bellatrix does. She could have gone with her if she'd had a mind to."

"Narcissa – no, Andromeda." Peter guessed quickly. After all, it wasn't as though Bellatrix and Narcissa were much alike in looks, "But Andromeda wouldn't go with her?"

"Dearest, Andromeda never got the chance." Rowena shook her head, "Bellatrix looked at her, and I could see her face light up, and I thought to myself "Aha, that's the one she'll be taking the train with." But then she set her eyes on the girl's husband, and, well…" she shrugged her shoulders, and sighed, "It's a shame."

Peter wasn't quite so sure he agreed with that. He'd spent long enough in Malfoy Manor to see what Bellatrix was capable of. He wasn't eager to get _any_ train that she would be sharing. "So she could get on the train?" he asked uncertainly.

"She could get on the train." Rowena confirmed. She turned, and crouched a little to get on an eye-level with Peter, and Peter found himself wondering when he had become _that_ short. He was sure he had been taller than her when they started talking. "Listen to me, dear. All it takes to get on the train is enough goodness in you to love and be loved in return. Whether she deserves it or not, your Bellatrix was loved, but she won't let herself love her sister in return. _She_ knows what she's done, and Merlin knows, whatever it is, it frightens her too much for her to board alone. But unless she forgives her sister for her marriage – and she won't – she has no-one to board with. "

"And I have no-one who would want to board with me." Peter said mournfully, "So we're in the same boat, in the end." Though it seemed quite unfair that Bellatrix, frightening as she was, should have somebody when he, Peter, had nobody at all.

"Don't be so sure of that." Rowena said seriously, She gripped Peter's shoulders, looking at him hard, "But what you have to understand is, this is the time for last chances. No more lies, no more grudges, no more silly games. If you don't forgive someone _here_, if you don't tell the truth _here_, there's no more chances. Do you understand me, Peter?"

A little startled, Peter nodded uncertainly, "Yes?"

"Good boy." Rowena released him, and straightened up, "Then there's somewhere we need to go."

This time she took his hand as they hurried across the Platform, back towards the Meeting Point. For the first time, Peter let himself look at the people who were waiting there. When he saw her, he gaped for a moment, then tried to shrink behind Rowena again. She turned, feeling his hesitation, "What is it?"

"I can't see her!" Peter hissed at her, panicked, "She thought I was dead! _Everybody_ thought I was dead! And now… she'll know what I've done. Everyone does. I _can't_."

"Peter," And once again, Rowena's voice was serious, "You've done some bad things, it's true. I'm not excusing you them. But I have a daughter, and she too has done some bad things. And I'm waiting here because I know that one day she's going to stop hiding from me at Hogwarts, and she's going to come here and tell me the things she's done. Even if it takes another thousand years, when she does, I'll still be here, and I'll be waiting to forgive her. You can spend eternity hiding from the things you've done, Peter, but if you do, you'll never leave the station."

"But… how can I, how can _she_ forgive that?" Peter looked terrified still, "She's going to be so disappointed."

"Dearest, didn't you know?" Rowena looked down at him fondly now, smoothing his hair, "There are people to whom even Unforgivable Curses are forgivable. That's what mothers are for."

Still Peter looked unconvinced. Rowena gave him a little push, "She loves you, Peter. But she can't, if you won't let her."

He stumbled forward a step, and then another as his mother saw him, and opened her arms to him. And then he was in her arms, and nine years old again, a little boy finally confessing a hidden misdeed.

"Mother, I did something, something awfully wrong." He blurted the words, and then hesitated, swallowing for the first time the urge to blame someone else, "It was my fault."

There was no revulsion in reaction, no horror, just a fierce embrace and gentle hands stroking his back. "I know, dear. I've been waiting _so_ long for you to be ready to tell me about it."

Rowena watched as the pair headed away, going finally to catch one of the trains that Peter had been so frightened of, and smiled for herself. She had known from the very beginning what it was Peter Pettigrew was waiting so long for.

Redemption.


	5. On The Wrong Track

"_Once upon a time, there were three __sisters."_

"_And were the sisters pretty, Mama?"_

"_Oh yes, my dearest. Two were beautiful as the night, and one as beautiful as the day."_

"What is _she_ doing here?"

Many people arrived at the station with questions, but few asked them with as much anger as Andromeda did. It was a shock to arrive in the afterlife only to discover her older sister had got there first. She had been as strong as the world demanded, she had grieved for her husband and daughter while going on to raise her grandson. She had wept, and coped, and _lived_ because the alternative was dying, and there were people who needed her too much for her to just give in to that.

But surely, _surely_ in a world with any justice at all, that kind of behaviour deserved a better reward than this? Surely any afterlife worth going to couldn't possibly contain her sister – the woman who joined the Deatheaters, the woman who killed her cousin Sirius, who killed her daughter Nymphadora… The list was a long one.

But the Guard hardly spared her a glance, _WAITING._

"Waiting for what?"

He looked at her pityingly, as though she might be slightly slow, and gestured to one of the huge timetables that stood at the side of the platform. _FOR A TRAIN._

"For a train?" Andromeda stared a little. "You mean, a train like everybody else gets? She – do you know what that woman's _done_? She's a Death Eater! A murderer! You can't just mean to put her on a train with people who've been good their whole lives."

Somehow that struck her as wrong and unfair and so obvious it should've remained unspoken.

_PUT HER ON A TRAIN? WHY SHOULD I PUT HER ANYWHERE? _the Guard asked, sounding slightly confused about the whole thing, _ALTHOUGH, IT WOULD BE NICE IF SHE WOULD LEAVE THE PLATFORM SOON. IT DOES MAKE IT UNTIDY WHEN PEOPLE WAIT AROUND LIKE THAT._

"But surely there has to be some kind of judgement?" Andromeda protested, "Something to stop the bad people getting on the train with the good ones. Something to make sure people _deserve_ it."

_SURELY YOU'RE BETTER PREPARED TO SAY WHAT YOU DESERVE AFTER YOUR LIFE THAN ME? YOU WERE THERE, AFTER ALL. _The Guard shrugged her away calmly, already moving away down the platform, _EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. THE TRAIN WILL BE HERE SOON._

Andromeda couldn't leave of course, not knowing Bellatrix was here. There was too much risk that her sister just _might_ manage to board a train, too much risk that innocent people might get hurt if she did. Andromeda doubted somehow that death would have changed her sister too much. She wasn't sure whether _Crucio _still worked after you died, but she really didn't want someone to have to find out.

So she waited, and she watched. She watched as, again and again, the train arrived and the train departed. Somehow, Bellatrix always seemed to be left behind when it pulled out of the station, lingering forlornly on the platform as the Guard blew his whistle.

She was watching closely enough to notice the day that something else was left in the crowd, something hooded and grey, hovering on the platform. She started forward with a yell, meaning to warn her sister. Despite everything – despite what had been done, and what Bellatrix would no doubt do again given the chance – nobody deserved that.

"It's all right, dear," somebody caught her arm, pulling her back gently. "They can't hurt you here."

"But it's a _Dementor_," Andromeda protested, staring at the creature as it started to drift away.

"Yes, the poor love," the old woman agreed, her tone serious, "I do hate it when those happen. It's so sad."

"The poor love?" Andromeda turned to look at her, bewildered. "I'm sorry, are you referring to the Dementor?"

The woman nodded, eyes still following the Dementor as it floated back from the platform edge and away, "I always think they're such a shame. Such a_ waste. _For people to do that to themselves, the poor things…"

"It's a Dementor? They… they eat souls." Andromeda had heard them referred to with many tones before - with anger, with fear, even with the awful triumph of those who had nothing left to their lives but justice dealt to those who had hurt them. Never before though had she heard them spoken of in quite that tone of pity.

"Yes, dear. And you might want to consider what it is that makes them so hungry," the woman said patiently, before turning to look at her directly. "Oh, I am sorry – I am being rude. I'm Rowena, dear – and what would your name be?"

"Andromeda," she offered her hand politely, still confused by the woman's comments. When thinking of Dementors it wasn't really usual to ask how _they_ felt about things. "They're hungry?"

"Oh, my dear," Rowena's tone was gentle, and instead of shaking Andromeda's hand she took it, holding it in her own warm hand, "Of course they are. The poor things are starving, starving of the hunger as they say."

"But what _are_ they?" Andromeda blurted. No-one else seemed to have noticed the Dementor as it drifted through the station, and as she watched it vanished out of sight entirely.

"And that was the _right_ question," Rowena said, her voice approving, and Andromeda felt that somehow she had passed a test without ever knowing what that test was. "They're lost souls. People who left the world without any happy memories – with nothing to draw them to the final destination and no-one to help them board the train. All they feel is the emptiness that is left where their soul has withered away leaving them hollowed out from the inside out. And they're hungry, hungry for the happiness and love they don't have."

It made an odd kind of sense. "So that's why they take happy memories."

"But other people's memories can't ever fill them up," Rowena nodded, "Imagine them as hungry children, stood at the window of a restaurant or bakers, trying to get full on the smell. They crave it with all their existence because the hunger _is_ their existence. Nobody ever got full off the _smell_ of food, but that wouldn't stop you trying if you were hungry enough."

"And sometimes they're lucky enough that the chef decides to hand them a bowl of good hearty stew." Unexpectedly, a male voice spoke behind them – familiar, and yet unheard in so long that Andromeda jumped a little.

"Dumbledore!"

Rowena seemed a little less pleased to see him. "What are you doing here, you old fool? Haven't you boarded that train yet?" she demanded, hands on her hips as she turned to face him.

"Oh, you know how it is. Can't ever resist the opportunity to turn up in time to provide a good metaphor." Dumbledore said cheerfully, "I believe you were telling her about Dementors?"

"You need to hurry up and find a train to get on," Rowena huffed. "The Guard keeps on telling you, it does you no good hanging about here hoping to interfere some more. It's too _late_ to do that once you get this far."

"And yet, here I am still waiting. I sometimes find that the journey itself is more interesting than the final destination," Dumbledore agreed, his voice pleasant. "You were going to tell her about the Dementor's Kiss. Or I can, if you prefer, and build quite a delicious stew metaphor out of it."

"I am sorry, dear," Rowena apologised, turning back to Andromeda, "From time to time, Albus decides that no-one on the station is capable of explaining things on their own unless they have his assistance. I'm told he was quite as bad about such things in life as he is now."

Behind her back, Dumbledore winked at Andromeda and sat down on a station bench, his blue eyes filled with a mischief more suited to a schoolboy. Andromeda fought the urge to laugh.

"As I was saying," Rowena continued, a little flustered. "They can't get full from memories, though they can try. They can only truly feed that hunger with the Dementor's Kiss which – yes, all _right, _Albus! – is a little like being offered a big bowl of hearty stew when you've been hungry your entire life."

"With carrots," Dumbledore contributed. "And sometimes a little sprig of parsley to garnish."

"There is such a thing as taking a metaphor too far Albus," Rowena said smoothing down her top.

"So you don't want to hear about the herby dumplings?" Dumbledore asked with a half smile.

"Really Albus. No." Rowena said firmly, her tone seeming to indicate that this was a relatively common occurrence.

"What happens to them?" Andromeda asked interjecting before things became derailed. "Once they're full?"

"They can't take it, poor things," Rowena's voice softened. "You'd think they would come back to the station – after all, they have a ticket now, even if it's not their own. Perhaps they try, and they just never make it. But near as I can figure it, its too much for them – a whole lifetime worth of happiness when they've had none of their own. They don't have the tolerance for it. They just…" she waved a hand in the air vaguely, "They go away."

"To where?" Andromeda shook her head, "They can't just _vanish_."

Rowena smiled at her sadly, "Oh, but dear, that's exactly what they _do_ do. Vanish away. And where do vanished objects go?"

"Into nonbeing," Dumbledore contributed the answer before Andromeda could. "Which is to say, everything." He stretched out his arms as though to encompass the world, "Everywhere and nowhere, all at once."

"I see." Andromeda glanced over again to where her sister was standing, reading the timetables, and felt her throat ache suddenly. "She has happy memories, you know," she said quietly. "We gave her those."

"I see." The way Rowena glanced at Dumbledore wasn't quite so subtle that Andromeda could have missed it. "That should be all right then."

"So, she can't become one of those, can she?" Andromeda continued stiffly, speaking past the lump that seemed to have grown inside her throat. "Not as long as she has some happy memories." Nineteen whole years of happy memories, even if she hadn't had any at all since… well, since everything went wrong.

"Well, that should certainly help a little," Rowena agreed carefully.

"And besides… besides, it would probably be _better_ for the world if she… if something happened that made her not exist anymore." The words were dragged out now, each one scraping through a throat that felt raw with the effort that not-crying took. "She was a… she did bad things. Really bad things. Killed people."

Dumbledore opened his mouth as though to say something, and Rowena shot him a sharp look. "No, you be quiet," she ordered firmly. "There's a time and a place for your interfering, and this isn't it. This is one she has to decide herself." She slipped a hand under Andromeda's elbow, guiding her to the station bench. "Sit down, dear."

Andromeda sat down, still speaking, staring down at the floor. "And sometimes I wanted to blame it on her being sent to Azkaban, but she was doing things like that _before_ Azkaban. Hurting people. _Torturing_ people. She was just…I never understood how she was the same person who used to snuggle down with me for bedtime stories. I never understood how that _worked. _How can someone be so normal, and then so evil?"

Rowena didn't speak this time, didn't try to answer that question, but sat down beside Andromeda, one hand rubbing gently over her back.

"And then I read she broke out and I – _Sirius_ was innocent when he broke out, and I thought maybe, just maybe we'd been wrong. Maybe someone had used _Imperius_ to make her confess or something. Maybe she was innocent and… and…" Andromeda's voice cracked now, and she started to cry properly. "She wasn't innocent. She was worse. She killed Sirius. She killed my _daughter_." Even though here the parting that death had brought stopped mattering, the betrayal of it happening at all, the pain of the news, the years without them – _that_ still hurt as freshly as though it had only been yesterday.

A handkerchief was pushed into her hand, and Andromeda wiped her eyes on it, noting the bright orange and green checks and the strong smell of lemon drops that emanated from it. One of Dumbledore's then.

"So, you see," she made herself go on, "it's probably for the best if she can't board the train. If she stops existing, or just goes away. She was… she did _bad_ things. Someone like that shouldn't go anywhere good. She would break it."

Again, Dumbledore tried to speak. Rowena silenced him with a glare. "If that's what you believe, dear," she agreed gently.

Andromeda sniffed. "You don't think I should help her?"

The old woman reached out and took her hands, holding them between her own. "That would be up to you," she answered, her voice serious as she met Andromeda's eyes. "No matter how much I'm sure Albus there would love to throw his opinion in about what you should do, we can't answer this one for you. You're right – your sister has done some bad things. Things which have hurt you especially. They weren't small things, and I'm not going to dismiss them and tell you that she had an excuse, or that they don't matter. They do. But only you can decide whether you still love her after them, whether you want to go to her and help her, or leave her be. No-one else can tell you that."

Andromeda wiped her eyes on the handkerchief. "She wouldn't accept my help anyway," she said quietly. "She hasn't forgiven me for Ted – she wouldn't speak to me even if I went over there."

"That would be her choice to make, yes," Rowena agreed. "But whether to go over – that one is yours."

"She wouldn't. She can't – if she could kill Sirius and Nymphodora then family can't mean anything to her, if it ever did. She can't remember…"

She stopped as though hearing her own words, running them through her head one more time.

"Something bothering you, dear?" Rowena asked placidly.

"No," Andromeda shook her head. "There's just… I think there's somewhere I need to go."

Side by side on the bench, Rowena and Dumbledore watched as she got up and hurried away towards the Guard's office.

"You knew she would go, didn't you?" Dumbledore asked after a moment, once she was out of earshot. "If she didn't believe her sister was worth saving, she wouldn't have still _been_ here. She would've left with all the other parts of herself."

"Hush," Rowena chided him, "Stay here a few more centuries and you'll learn. It isn't what we know they'll choose that matters. It's that they choose it _themselves._"

The Guard was just coming out of his office when Andromeda reached it. She stopped in front of him, hoping he wouldn't just hurry away again.

"Please, there's something I need. I think it might be in Lost Property."

He eyed her, and she fought the impulse to step back under his gaze. She had to be right about this. _Had_ to be.

_SOMETHING OF YOURS?_

"No," she shook her head. "Something of my sister's."

_AH. _And now the Guard nodded, turning back to unlock the door he had just closed behind him. _I'VE BEEN WONDERING WHEN SOMEONE WOULD COME FOR THOSE._

Andromeda followed him in, gazing curiously around an office which seemed cluttered with belongings. On the floor, a cat bowl so carelessly placed that she almost trod in it; draped across a chair, a cloak which seemed oddly familiar though she couldn't think why; propped on a shelf a small black and white television which hissed and spattered with interference. She dragged her attention away from trying to hear what the newsreader was saying as the Guard pulled a large box out and stood it on the desk.

_NOW, FOR YOUR SISTER… _he said, and Andromeda watched in amazement and mild horror at the variety of objects that were pulled out and stacked upon the desk. A bag of marbles, an odd sock and an eyeball all came out of the box – the last item attracting instant attention from a large black raven she had previously not noticed perched over by the window.

The Guard waved it away as it flew over, quickly tucking the eyeball back into the box and out of sight. _NO, I'VE TOLD YOU,_ he told the bird sternly, _HE'S COMING BACK FOR IT._

Seeming disappointed, the bird flew back to his window, and a moment later the Guard pulled a large jar out of the box, _AH, HERE WE ARE._

Eagerly, Andromeda reached to take it. "I thought they might be here! I mean, they were taken not really _lost_ but _she'd_ lost them, and I thought…"

_SOONER OR LATER, ALL LOST THINGS END UP HERE,_ the Guard agreed calmly, _SIGN HERE PLEASE._

Obediently she signed where he pointed, trying to ignore the feeling that the fingers which brushed against hers were cold bone rather than warm flesh. Paperwork completed, he shooed her outside, and she stepped back into the station, precious jar clutched tightly against her chest.

There was Bellatrix, hunched up on one of the benches, and Andromeda didn't allow herself to hesitate as she headed straight towards her.

Her sister attempted to look straight through her as she approached, and when that failed to discourage her she reached for her wand, scowling as she rose to her feet. "What do _you_ want?" she demanded, threat clear in both her tone and the way she held her one, "I have a train to catch. I haven't time to be bothered by your type."

Just a short time ago that would have been enough to send Andromeda away, but now she found she was smiling as she unscrewed the jar. "Just to give you back something you lost," she answered cheerily. "Here!"

It took a moment for her to manage it, a moment for the child-proof lock on the jar to be worked loose, and for one horrible moment Andromeda thought that she might have to ask Bellatrix to wait as she went to find someone with better grip.

Then the lid popped loose, and like butterflies they came soaring out – a hundred, maybe a thousand, happy memories. They flapped their gossamer thought-wings for a moment and gleaming iridescent in the sunshine before settling over Bellatrix.

Memories of Christmases, of birthdays, of pretty dresses and parties. Memories of shared naughtiness – of chocolate stolen from the kitchen and eaten in their rooms before the house-elves could tell Mother. Memories of tears and tantrums – of arguments quickly made up, of condolence over bad marks or stupid boys, of sorrows shared and recovered from _together_.

Nineteen years they'd had before things went wrong. And you couldn't live through nineteen years without _some_ good memories, whoever you were, whoever you turned into.

Andromeda watched them settle, watched as her sister's expression quickly changed from furious an cold to dazed.

"I couldn't understand," she explained filling the silence with awkward painful hope and words, "I could almost understand how you could do things to other people, but I couldn't understand how you could to _me_. I couldn't understand how you'd forgotten that I loved you… Then… then I remembered that the Dementors fed on happy memories. I thought maybe they were lost, so I got them back for you."

Bellatrix sank back down onto the station bench, her expression one of complete shock. After a moment, Andromeda dared to come and sit next to her, slipping an arm around her, feeling her tense and yet not pull away.

She was her sister. Not perfect, not even _good_, someone who had undoubtedly done very bad things. But she was her sister, and right now, she had no-one else.

They sat for a few moments in silence. Andromeda was unsure what to say – did she try to forgive her for what had been done? Tell her she loved her? Things had gotten so very broken – even with memories, could they be fixed with mere words?

When she opened her mouth though, she suddenly found she knew exactly what to say, mouth shaping the words of the story they had known since they were infants.

"Once upon a time, there were three sisters."

For a moment, it didn't look as though Bellatrix would respond. Andromeda glanced at her face, trying to read her expression, hoping fervently that her words had not been a mistake. If she only got one chance, and she had messed it up…

But, no. Bellatrix almost whispered the words, her lips barely moving as she asked the traditional question. One of them had always asked it after all, every story time. "Were they pretty sisters?"

Andromeda's shoulders sagged a little in relief and continued, words as familiar as any spell. "Oh yes. Two as beautiful as the stars at night, and one as beautiful as flowers in the sun…"

After all, it had always been a story with a happy ending.


	6. Terminus

_SOMEBODY HAS BEEN IN THE LOST PROPERTY BOX AGAIN, ALBERT._

"I blame that bloody raven, Master. It's always hanging about. You know what they're like for shiny objects. 'You can always trust a raven to go thieving,' that's what my old aunt used to say." Albert sniffed hard, and gave this a moment's thought, "Mind, that was before we found the box of jewellery the cunning old biddy was hiding under her bed. Turned out she'd been swiping it for _years _and blaming the birds."

It could sometimes take a few minutes to digest what Albert had said and work out what the old man had actually been talking about. _IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT YOUR AUNT HAS BEEN IN MY OFFICE, ALBERT, _he pointed out reasonably, _AND THE DEATH OF RATS ASSURES ME THAT QUOTH IS MOST RELIABLE, IF POSSESSED OF AN UNFORTUNATE LIKING OF EYEBALLS._

"Yeah, well he _would_ say that, wouldn't he?" Albert said sourly. "You've got to look at the bird's reputation is all I'm saying, Master. There's got to be a reason the Ravenclaw's bird is an eagle. _They_ know not to trust the buggers." He sniffed again loudly.

_PERHAPS. _Still, the Guard sounded doubtful, _STILL, A TAPESTRY IS HARDLY A SHINY OBJECT. _

"Maybe those boys who were hanging around then," Albert suggested. "Can't trust teenage boys – they'll have their thieving hands into everything. Speaking as someone who was a thieving little bugger myself in my time." He looked mournfully into his now-empty mug and stood it upside-down in the little office sink. The metal hissed as a few remaining drops trickled out. Albert tended to take a "kill or cure" approach to tea. In a place where death had already happened, that it had any visible effect was more than a little impressive. But Albert had learned at an early age to never underestimate the power of a cup of tea.

_I DO NOT BELIEVE THEY COULD HAVE GOT INTO THE OFFICE. _The Guard stood, seeming even taller than usual in contrast to the little old man at his side. _I SHALL HAVE TO INVESTIGATE IT LATER. COME, ALBERT. THE TRAIN WILL BE LATE._

Albert shuffled after him, a gleeful grin on his face as he settled the smart cap back onto rather dirty white hair. After all, he'd always wanted to be a train driver when he was a boy.

-

Somehow, he had never thought that he would be left here alone. Regulus had never given much thought of what would happen _afterwards_. All his thought and planning had gone into trying to find a way he could get away with it, a way he could get the locket destroyed before Voldemort could stop him. None of it at all had gone to consider what might happen _here_. But on the whole that was true of the majority of people.

His mother had been the first to arrive. Regulus had seen her and run up eagerly, expecting to be greeted. He hadn't wanted much – a hug, reassurance that she had done the right thing, that she had loved him and missed him. He'd seen it over and over in the others he had watched from where he waited at the station, sitting patiently on the very uncomfortable seats.

But Walburga hadn't even given him that. Calmly, coldly, she had looked straight through her youngest son, her face twisting into the kind of sneer that in life she had usually reserved for Mudbloods. She hadn't even spoken to him, but stepped around him. Regulus had watched helplessly as she had boarded the train with his father, leaving him on the platform.

Perhaps he should have known, and expected it. She would never have approved of him betraying Voldemort in life, so why should it be any different in death? Certainly the only time she had approved of him, been her favourite had been when he was following in Bellatrix's footstep, his star in the ascendant compared to Sirius and his rebellion. It had taken only days to fall from grace in the end and he knew he'd earned her withering scorn. But he had never expected her to just leave him behind.

It had been the same with the people who Regulus had once called friends. He was a pariah, stuck in between. Boys he had known in Slytherin hurried in the other direction when he approached them. Death Easters he didn't even dare to approach – even trying to view things as optimistically as possible, he couldn't see that having a good outcome.

Still, there was hope. After all, he'd done a _good_ thing, hadn't he? Mother and the others might not see it that way, but he'd done it for them too – for everyone. He'd done it to save people, to try to _fix_ the wrong he had done. Somebody, surely, would understand that.

There was still Sirius to come, after all. Sirius who had fought for years against Voldemort, despite the family's reaction. Sirius who had reacted with such horror and disgust on finding his younger brother had become a Death Eater that Regulus hadn't dared to contact him again. Surely Sirius would understand what he had done, Sirius would forgive him.

When he finally saw Sirius though, his brother was too busy to notice him, laughing and lost in his group of friends. Regulus felt his spirits lift a little at the sight, and he broke into a relieved grin. At last!

He was so relieved that he didn't notice for a moment the direction the group of boys were heading. By the time he realised and broke into a run, they were already boarding the train, the doors closing behind them as the Guard's whistle blew. Regulus banged on the doors, hoping they might open, but the train was already moving. A strong arm caught him around the waist, pulling him backwards.

_KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE OF THE PLATFORM PLEASE, _the Guard directed sternly.

"But – my brother! I have to get on the train!"

It was his last hope, his best and most desperate and he could see it pulling further and further away disappearing into the curious mixture of billowing steam, light and absolute darkness that obscured where the line went.

_I AM SORRY._ The Guard was apologetic but firm, _THAT TRAIN HAS ALREADY LEFT THE STATION._

_-_

They would come. Kreacher knew if he waited long enough they would come. How could they cope without him after all? Who would carry their tea trays, and cook their dinner, and look after them if he were not there? Humans needed their house elves. They couldn't be expected to cope on their own.

Some of them he had seen leave already. He had watched as they bustled through the station, hurrying onto trains, never thinking to look for Kreacher. He hadn't thought to mind – it wasn't his place to mind. They would come back, wouldn't they? When they needed Kreacher, they would come back.

He clung to that hope, never leaving the station, never boarding a train. It wasn't so much fear of his destination that held him, for Kreacher would have gone anywhere he was ordered, whether he was afraid or not. That was being a house-elf and he was proud to serve as a true elf should. No, what frightened him was leaving and not being at the station when they _needed_ him. They would have told him if he were meant to leave, surely. Until then, he would wait.

It wasn't as though there wasn't work to be done as he waited. There was a _crack_ as he Apparated, reappearing outside the door of the Office. Avoiding being stepped on by people too busy to notice such a small creature in their midst he darted through the crowd, clutching another gleaming object within his hand. Kreacher would keep the Black family's things safe. Kreacher always had, sometimes even from themselves.

He didn't notice the even smaller figure behind him, patiently following the house-elf's footsteps.

_SQUEAK._

_-_

"Hard luck." Regulus didn't realise his attempt to board the train had been watched until he went to sit back down on a bench. He was followed by an old man who sat down without waiting for an invitation. "He might have waited for you, don't you think?"

Startled, Regulus looked at the man who had intruded into his moment of desolation. He was an odd-looking man – older than anyone Regulus had ever seen before, and with a beard that fell almost to his feet in an ostentatious display of wizardly gravitas. It was a face that he felt he _should_ recognise, and yet couldn't put a name to. Not overly keen on discussing his situation with a stranger, he shrugged a little trying for diffidence or something that masked how much that abandonment had hurt him. "He didn't see me. Besides, he was busy with his friends."

"If he cared about you, he could have waited for you," the old man informed him pityingly. "This is the place where you truly have as much or as little time as you care to take for someone." He studied Regulus, examining the boy with sharp grey eyes. "Brother was he? Or family of some type? You look alike."

"Brother," Regulus confirmed shortly, "I'm sorry, do I know you? I don't know your face." Years of practice allowed him to put all the cold haughtiness that was needed into that question. By rights, the old man should have apologised and hurried away. Anyone else would have.

Instead the old man smiled at him, and offered a wrinkled hand. "Salazar," he introduced himself calmly, "Salazar Slytherin."

"Oh." That was a name to jerk Regulus out of feeling sorry for himself, and he stared a little, feeling unaccustomedly shy. Here, after all, was the one man _no_ pureblood could try to truly lord it over. "Oh, I uh – sorry, I'm Regulus. Regulus Black." He shook Salazar's hand a little awkwardly, unsure whether there were other formalities he was expected to conform to.

Not that the old man seemed to mind. "Black, is it? There's a name that's been around a while," he nodded, setting comfortably back on his bench. "Now, tell me about this brother of yours."

Regulus wavered a moment, and Salazar shook his head, seeing the hesitation. "Didn't anyone teach you to respect your elders, boy?" he demanded. "We old people have earned the right to be nosy by living for long enough to run out of interesting things of our own. Tell me."

"I followed someone I really shouldn't have," Regulus didn't try to hide from it or make excuses. He'd passed through that phase when he'd been alive and made his decisions then. "Someone who was doing very bad things. Things that were killing a lot of people. So I… I tried to fix it. I did something I thought might help _save_ them. Sirius was angry at me for what I'd done wrong… I thought he might have forgiven me if I did something right instead." He sighed a little, hunching down on the bench. "Guess I was wrong. Guess I did too much for it to be fixed."

"I've met boys like that," Salazar nodded. "Hard to live up to, they are. Boys that never do anything wrong themselves, and can't understand it when someone close to them is less than perfect. This Sirius of yours, was he the type to always behave himself?"

Despite the situation, the question was enough to almost make Regulus want to laugh. He thought of his older brother for a moment, and how many times he'd been in and out of scrapes, practically existing as a singularity of chaos and mayhem that sucked in everyone around him, and shook his head, "Oh, no! Not like that at all!"

The old man looked at him curiously, head tilted a little to one side. "Then why in Merlin's name did he ever expect _you_ to manage to always do the right thing?"

"It's complicated." Regulus struggled to explain it, trying to find the words. "Sirius did a lot of little things wrong, but I guess he never saw what he did as on the same scale as what I did."

"It does sound like a rather big thing you did there," Salazar agreed in a smooth tone. "I expect you ran away from home to join the forces of evil, broke your mother's heart, that kind of thing?"

This time Regulus' laugh held a touch of bitterness. "No, that was more Sirius' type of thing, really. Mother was all for the Death Eaters. He was the one who ran away. I guess he thought I should have done the same."

"Must have been a brave boy," Salazar commented. "Not a small thing to do, running away from home, defying your parents, finding somewhere to live, struggling for money…"

"Well, one of his friends took him in," Regulus admitted. "I mean, he wasn't _homeless_ or anything. And my uncle left him some money." He thought of how angry their mother had been the night she discovered that, cursing Sirius' name, Alphard's name, and anyone else unfortunate enough to get in her way. "Quite a lot of money, actually."

"I see. It seems your brother had a talent for landing on his feet," Salazar said thoughtfully, "Would your uncle have done the same for you?"

"I don't know." Regulus shrugged. "Never tested it. Mother was so upset after Sirius left, and the family was in enough uproar as it was, and with him gone I was meant to step up and be the Heir so the line could continue…" He glanced down at himself, a little ruefully. "Guess that part didn't work out so well."

"Sounds to me like you were doing the best you could."

"Oh yes," Regulus agreed. "It's just that for most people, doing the best you can probably doesn't involve taking a job where you have to kill people." He shifted, running a hand though long dark hair. "I was an idiot. I should have told Mother "no" earlier."

Salazar looked at him, grey eyes intense. "What does she think now of what you've done?"

"She won't talk to me, so I would imagine she doesn't think anything good," he admitted. "You know, I don't even know if that's because she thinks I got killed for letting the Dark Lord down, or if she knows what I actually _did_ do. Not that I suppose it matters… I should have known how she'd react. Look how she reacted to Sirius after all."

Still it stung, more than he would like to admit. She was his mother and he'd done a lot of things for her approval that did nothing but hurt others and himself.

"It sounds like you got a poor reward for trying to save people." Salazar said gravely. "Your brother hates you because you were killing people, your mother hates you because you stopped." He smiled thinly at Regulus, "I bet you wish now that you hadn't stopped. At least then, you would have had _someone_ waiting for you."

Regulus hesitated. In truth, the thought had crossed his mind. "I didn't say that."

"Why not? It's true." The old man's voice softened, sounding almost like a hiss as he continued speaking. "You gave up your chance to have somebody who cared about you enough to wait for you by trying to save people like him. People who don't even care about _you_ enough to check you're okay, make sure you're safely on the train. People who found it easy to be good, and don't understand you had to give up everything to stop being bad. Why should you save them? Why shouldn't you regret it? They didn't deserve it."

It was a coaxing voice, poking at the anger and resentment Regulus had tried hard to bury deep inside himself. He bit down on his bottom lip, giving a quick shake of his head.

Salazar took no notice, his words a soft tempting murmur that crept in no matter how Regulus tried not to listen. "You could make it up to those you betrayed, you know. They're not so judgmental as those on the _good_ side – they understand that somehow, despite people's best intentions, they do things wrong. You could try to work with them – certainly lives don't matter so much anymore here, but there are souls, and aren't they worth so much more? You could be _happy!_"

"Stop it!" Enough was enough, and Regulus jumped to his feet, taking a quick step away from the bench. "Just… shut up! I don't want to be that person any more!"

"People like your brother will never accept you, no matter how good you try to be," Salazar warned. "They will always remember that you were _bad_ once and keep walking."

"I don't care!" Regulus snapped. "That's not why I did it!"

"Then why did you do it?" The old man smiled up at him beatifically from the bench, still utterly calm and composed.

"Because maybe they didn't deserve to be saved, but they didn't deserve to die either!" Regulus said sharply. "And it wasn't up to me or the Dark Lord to make that choice. Because… because I'd done something wrong so I had to make it better. It wasn't so that Sirius or anyone else would know. _I _knew. _I_ knew I'd done something wrong, so I had to know I'd at least _tried_ to do something to fix it."

"Then no-one will meet you at the station," Salazar warned.

"Fine!" Regulus shook the warning off. "Then I'll wait here forever – I don't care! I'd rather wait here forever than know I'd started hurting people again just to get my chance to leave."

Brave words, even if the thought did make his blood run a little cold. To wait here forever, even after everyone he'd known had passed out of the station ahead of him? It seemed a hard price to pay.

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that," Salazar gave that sharp, thin smile again. "Those of us who have waited at the station a good long time learn that it has certain disadvantages and hardships that normal people just aren't prepared for."

"I'll cope with them," Regulus said fiercely. "Whatever they are, I'll find a way to cope." He glared at Salazar for a moment before adding, a little more tentatively, "Uh, what _are_ they?"

Salazar rose from the bench a little more slowly than Regulus had, struggling to his feet. He met Regulus' gaze, holding it silently for just long enough to let the boy's imagination run wild, imagining all the horrors than might be hiding in the cracks and corners of the station.

"The tea," he said finally, as though it had taken that long to consider his answer. "The tea is really _unbelievably_ bad."

-

_NO. HE'S NOT A RAT._

_SQUEAK! SQUEAK, EEK SQUEEK._

_YES, I KNOW WE DISCUSSED YOU DIVERSIFYING A LITTLE, BUT I WAS THINKING MORE ALONG THE LINES OF RABBITS AND GUNIEA PIGS. HOUSE-ELVES AND CENTAURS WERE NOT MENTIONED._

_SQUEAK!_

_BEING SMALLER THAN A HUMAN DOESN'T MAKE HIM A RAT EITHER. NO. _

It was the sort of argument that drew attention. After all, it wasn't every day you saw a Guard squabbling with a skeletal rat in the middle of a train station. Even here, where people were more concerned with their own personal journeys than anything around them, some stopped to look.

Regulus was among them. When you were stuck at a train station for what was potentially the rest of eternity, entertainment of any sort was welcome. He watched as the rat stamped and glared, its squeaking taking on an agitated note.

_NO, I'M SURE I DIDN'T AGREE TO GIANT SPIDERS EITHER._

Perhaps Regulus could have watched for the rest of the afternoon, but the rat was not a tall creature and as more people crowded around he lost sight of it. He gave a grunt of annoyance, pushing his way back to the front.

It was then, and only then, that he saw what the pair were arguing over. Crouched over a small pile of objects, his ugly features set into a defiant scowl, the house-elf looked as though he cared little what they decided. It didn't matter what they thought, _he_ wasn't going anywhere.

"Kreacher?"

The elf physically jolted at his name, and he twisted, dropping to his knees as he saw Regulus. After so many people who had walked past – good friends, family, people he would have _sworn_ would still care for him no matter what – it made Regulus' heart hurt a little to see the way Kreacher's face lit up.

Sometimes you needed somebody who needed you like that, even if it was only a house-elf.

"Master Regulus!" Kreacher scrabbled on the ground, gathering up his little pile of objects – objects that seemed oddly familiar now Regulus came to look more closely. The house-elf held them out to him, offering them hopefully. "Kreacher found them. Mundungus Fletcher tried to steal them – nasty sneakthief! – but Kreacher found them, and took care of them for Master Regulus, and my mistress, and…"

Behind him, the Guard sighed. _LOST PROPERTY IS AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE WHO HAS LOST SOMETHING AND ASKED THAT IT BE RETURNED, _he noted, _REALLY THERE IS NO NEED TO JUST TAKE THINGS._

_SQUEAK, _the rat added, seeming to agree with him on that.

Regulus took no notice, gently lifting the lost possessions from Kreacher's trembling hands, and sorting through them. It was a strange little assortment. There was the tapestry with its gold thread, tracing the roots of the House of Black. Odd that Mother hadn't removed his name, even when she thought he had been killed for failing the Dark Lord. Well, that could go. It wasn't as though he could use it for anything other than a list of people who hated him now. There were the pictures – taken so long ago now. Regulus' heart ached as he leafed through them, pictures of happy people looking just like any other family. There were Mother's gloves…

"Kreacher kept them," the house-elf said in his usual hoarse croak as Regulus went to set those aside. "Kreacher kept them safe for his Mistress. Mistress gets cold hands, and she will need them at the station when she comes back."

Regulus hesitated, still holding the gloves, remembering how his mother had pushed past him and left for the train without even a glance back. "Kreacher," he said gently, "Mother's not coming back."

Kreacher just stared at him, blinking his watery eyes, not quite seeming to understand.

"Didn't you see the trains?" Regulus asked patiently. "Don't you have anyone to – oh, of course _you_ probably don't need anyone," he interrupted himself quickly. "It's not as though you've done anything to make you afraid of the destination. Why didn't you get a train, Kreacher?"

Kreacher looked at him, expression confused. "Kreacher was waiting," he answered, as though that should have been obvious. "Kreacher knew his Masters and Mistresses would come to the station, and they would need Kreacher when they came, so Kreacher waited." He looked anxious suddenly, his face twisting. "Did Kreacher do wrong?"

Regulus knew that expression, and acted quickly, hastily catching at the house-elf's hands before he could try to hurt himself. "No, Kreacher," he said quickly. "No, you did the right thing. You did well. Very well."

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to imagine the house-elf waiting patiently here as his parents and cousins brushed past, none of them thinking to call him or wait for him. It wasn't a case of anger as it was for Regulus', wasn't a case of Kreacher being guilty of a crime they could not forgive. No, it was simple negligence and forgetfulness which was worse in some ways. No-one had remembered Kreacher.

Even he himself had forgotten. He'd been too busy moping around the station, immersed in his own misery to think about something which seemed so inconsequential as a house-elf. He felt a stab of guilt at that thought. All his strong words of responsibility and doing the right thing, all of his hurt at his brother seeming to forget him as he left without him, and he still hadn't thought…Even when he'd forgotten Kreacher, Kreacher had remembered _him_.

"You could order him to stay." The voice came from behind him, and Regulus' eyes flew open, recognising the soft sibilant tones. "He's only a house-elf, he wouldn't know any difference really. But he'd be better than nothing if you're so fixed on spending eternity here."

Instinctively, Regulus stepped in front of the house-elf, as though to shield him from Salazar. "He's got no reason to stay."

"Not unless you order him, no," the old man agreed. He looked around Regulus, eyes seeking Kreacher out greedily. "But if you told him to… well then. He'd stay as long as you told him to. They're made to serve, after all."

For a moment Regulus allowed himself to think about it. What harm would it do, really, if he ordered Kreacher to stay? Most people might not count a house-elf as company, but it was better than an eternity alone here. It wasn't even as though Kreacher mightn't be happy – having a Master around generally made him as happy as he was ever likely to be.

"Just order him," Salazar prompted. "Tell him he isn't to get a train."

"Master? Is Kreacher to stay?" Kreacher asked from behind him, worried but perfectly willing to do whatever he was told.

Regulus hesitated, and then shook his head. "No," he said firmly, "I'm the one who messed up, and not him. He shouldn't have to stay here with me forever just because I made a mistake."

"You're making another big mistake," Salazar warned, but Regulus ignored him, already striding off towards the edge of the platform, Kreacher trotting at his heels like a puppy.

The tannoy was crackling to life as they reached it, hissing out its almost-incoherent message. _"The train at platform nine-and-three-quarters is the delayed 2PM train. Can all passengers please ensure they take all belongings with them onto the train. A snack-bar will be located in coach G."_

There wasn't much time then. Regulus crouched down by Kreacher's side, wanting to be on a level with the house-elf for once. "Kreacher? The train will be coming soon, and I want you to get on it."

"Yes, Master," Kreacher agreed obediently. Of course, he would. Didn't he always agree to everything he was ordered?

"I won't be coming with you," Regulus continued, and tried not to see the way the old house-elf's eyes teared up. This was for the best, he had to remember that. He was doing it for Kreacher's own good. "Or after you, for that matter. You're going to a good place, I think, Kreacher. I'm not exactly sure where, but I think it'll be a happy place. I just need you to go there on your own."

It was only the second time he had ever had to order Kreacher to go anywhere alone, and the first… well, the first hadn't ended so well. He'd sent him into darkness and if he was going to send him somewhere for the last time, then it would be into light.

Kreacher looked heartbroken at the very idea, tears pouring down his face, and yet still he nodded in response. "Yes, Master."

"Good. That's good." Regulus kept his own voice calm with an effort, standing up as the train came in.

The step up onto the train was too high for Kreacher to scramble up, and Regulus had to lift him up, into the carriage, grasping the house-elf firmly under the arms.

He hadn't expected or anticipated the hand that hit his back as he did so, giving him a firm shove forwards. Regulus stumbled, landing almost on top of Kreacher as he fell into the carriage.

The doors closed firmly behind him as he fell. On the platform, the Guard's whistle blew. This train had no time to wait for unintended passengers to disembark before it moved on to the next station. After all, it was late. This train was _always_ late.

Regulus scrambled back to his feet, and looked out of the window, only to see the platform vanishing fast behind them.

"Master Regulus?" The voice came from his side, where Kreacher stood patiently, waiting. "May we go home now?"

-

On the platform, the Guard turned slowly to look at the old man standing beside him. If skulls had eyebrows, he might well have raised them. _SOME WOULD REGARD THAT AS CHEATING._

Salazar shrugged, smiling to himself as he watched the train vanish into the distance. "If the boy hadn't realised after all of my questions that he had nothing left to fear from his destination, he needed a helping hand. Besides, you can't say he went alone. He had the house-elf."

The Guard contemplated this. _THIS IS TRUE, _he agreed, a little reluctantly. _THOUGH IT WAS A VERY SMALL CREATURE._

"Who measures the size of love?" Salazar asked mildly, "The boy loved him enough to put him on a train, even if it meant being alone. The house-elf loved him enough to wait. Noble sacrifice has its place, but unnecessary martyrdom benefits no one in the end. That should be enough to see both of them through to the other side."

_YES. YOU WENT TO __RATHER A LOT OF TROUBLE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT, _the Guard noted, _I SHOULD POINT OUT HOWEVER, THAT SHOVING PEOPLE ONTO TRAINS IS, STRICTLY SPEAKING, AGAINST PLATFORM SAFETY REGULATIONS._

Salazar grinned, tugging lightly on his long beard as he turned to face the Guard. "Sometimes, I think it's best to disregard the rules if its in order to get something I really want," he said as he flourished a hand and a green and silver porcelain cup of tea, completely unlike the lurid orange of the station tea, appeared in his hand. It defied the nature of the rules, an impossible thing, in an impossible place.

He smiled even as he murmured under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.

"I'm rather known for it in fact."


	7. Missed Connections

"Barty! Barty, over here!"

Of course, his parents would forgive him. Barty had no fears on finding himself at the station, happy and confident in the knowledge that he had parents who would love him and help him no matter what he did.

Even if he betrayed them - twice over. Even if his betrayal caused their deaths.

His mother almost flew across the station to him, hugging him tightly. He bore the tearful embrace patiently, much the same way he had the last time that they had discovered they betrayed them. Parents could get so _emotional_ sometimes.

His father was not quite so quick to follow, and for a moment Barty thought the old fool might actually be holding a grudge about the way things had turned out. That seemed unfair - it was hardly his _fault_ he had needed to kill him, after all. If he'd stopped trying to _interfere_ all the time, stopped getting in the way of things that had to be done, he could have been allowed to live.

Of course, none of that could be said out loud. Instead he turned woeful eyes on his father, using a repentant expression that had worked for decades. "Dad? Aren't you pleased to see me?"

"Not so much," his father admitted. The older man's hand was resting lightly on his wand, and Barty eyed it with slight unease. "I don't seem to remember us parting on the best of terms, Bartemius. You _killed_ me. And it was murder not an accident – I should know I was there at the time."

Barty resisted the urge to reach for his own wand. That would not take the conversation the way he needed it to go - not if he ever wanted to get on a train. If he wanted that, he would have to appear to be appropriately guilty, and apologetic and sorrowful.

Just as he had been the first time.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he said, letting his voice tremble a little, a slight whine entering into it. "It wasn't my fault. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - he _made_ me!"

"Just as he did last time," his father nodded, his expression cold. "So I understand. Amazing how much autonomy you seemed to have while apparently under the control of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. You forget, I had intimate knowledge of how someone behaves under _imperio_ thanks to you."

Barty resisted the urge to snarl at him. He could do this. It was only play-acting, and he had play-acted for _months_ as Mad-Eye. How hard could a few minutes be? He stared at the pavement like a naughty schoolboy, shuffling his feet. "I'm really sorry," he said again, meekly.

"I'm sure he won't do it again, Bartemius." It was his mother who pleaded for him, just as she had the first time, her arms wrapped tightly around Barty as she looked at her husband. "Please, we've all died, and all this quarrelling isn't going to help anyone. I'm sure he's learnt his lesson. Can't we just forget it and move on?"

Forget it and move on. Barty resisted the urge to smirk. Whether it was a broken vase, the torture of innocents, or the murder of his own father, his mother was always quick to disregard any crime of her son's in the sake of family harmony. It could be very convenient sometimes.

There was a pause. Barty could feel his father's eyes on him, feel the hard gaze studying him, and kept his own eyes firmly fixed on the floor. If anyone could get around the rigid righteousness of his father, it was Mother. Mother had always known his soft spots...

"Bartemius," his mother added softly, "remember that eternity is a very long time to spend without your son." She hesitated for a second, and then Barty felt her arms tighten around him. "And without me too, if you wish to choose it that way."

That made his father pause for a moment. "Almathea," he started, and already Barty could hear his voice start to soften, "I know you love him, but the fact remains, your son has done some very bad things..."

"_Our_ son, Bartemius," she corrected fiercely, "...and if he did bad things, it's because we taught him them. We're responsible as much as he is. We can't just _leave_ him."

"Taught him them?" his father echoed, tone incredulous. "Torturing people to death, committing horrible acts of murder and violence? _I _never taught him such things."

Barty thought of Azkabhan, wondering silently just how many people his father had sentenced there, and stifled a snort. Of _course_ his father never involved himself in torture or murder. He had Dementors to do that for him.

"Please, Bartemius," Almathea asked again. "For love of me, if for nothing else, don't split our family up again. Not when we've only just _found_ each other."

Barty allowed himself to look up then, forcing his face into as repentant expression as he could manage. "Please, Dad," he said, adding his own pleading to his mother's, "I'm really sorry about... you know. Things got confused, and I did things wrong. I see that now."

"I see," his father looked at him hard, as though trying to read him. "Well, I hope your time with a Dementor really has taught you a lesson, young man, because I simply will not tolerate further occurrences of this behaviour."

_Taught him a lesson?_ For a moment, the memory was clear in Barty's mind, the feeling of being trapped, and utterly alone and slowly drained of everything that was good or kind. It wasn't pain, because pain was too small a word for it, in the same way that "cold" was too small a word to describe the Arctic.

As if such an experience could teach anyone _anything_ other than to hate the people who subjected you to it. It was harder this time to control his expression and tone, but he made himself nod again. "I'm sorry, Dad," he repeated.

"There now, he's apologised, let's let that be an end to it, shall we?" his mother urged, looking from one to the other. "Come on now, let's get the train and we'll say no more of the matter. It'll be leaving shortly."

After a moment his father nodded, and it was only with a great effort that Barty stopped himself from smirking as he followed his parents towards the arriving train. Yet again his mother's soft heart had kept him out of trouble.

Or so he thought.

The crowd waiting for the train was a large one, and Barty glanced about as he joined them, noting a few familiar faces. He saw too those lingering at the edge of the crowd, and smiled to himself, understanding why they were afraid to get on and slightly smug that he did not have to suffer the same fear. Of course if you were afraid of where the train would take you, the best solution was to get on with somebody you knew to be truly good. What kind of train would take his mother anywhere bad just in order to punish him? He had no doubt that his mother could pass any test of morality and purity that might be demanded, and so by following her he ensured his own safety.

Not that he intended on telling any of those waiting that of course. No, they could stay here forever or work it out for themselves, it mattered little either way to him.

There was the train, and the crowd surged forward as the doors opened, the platform slowly emptying. Barty followed, making sure to keep his parents in sight.

He did not expect a bony hand to land on his shoulder before he could set foot onto the train.

_EXCUSE ME, SIR,_ the Guard spoke politely but sternly, towering over him. _MIGHT I SEE YOUR TICKET PLEASE?_

"Ticket?" Barty repeated, glancing after the other passengers. "You never asked for any of their tickets!"

_I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT WHETHER I ASKED OR NOT, I SAW THEIR TICKETS._ the Guard replied calmly. _DO YOU HAVE A TICKET? I AM AFRAID THAT IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT A TICKET, YOU CAN NOT BOARD THE TRAIN._

His mother understood before he did, stepping back onto the platform to rest a protective hand on her son's arm. "He lost his ticket," she said softly, "but he can have mine."

"Almathea, no!" his father looked appalled by the idea. "You've given too much for the young fool already. He made his bed, he'll have to lie on it for once."

_I AM SORRY. _And indeed the Guard did look regretful - or at least as regretful as a six foot skeleton could look. _TICKETS ARE NONTRANSFERABLE. IT IS ONE OF THE TERMS OF BUYING AN ADVANCE TICKET._

No ticket? It took a moment for Barty's mind to process what that actually _meant_, to understand what had been taken from him in that moment when the Dementor had pressed its mouth to his. They said the Dementors took your soul. He had never thought they actually _meant_ it - at least not like this. He didn't feel different. What was the point of a soul if you couldn't tell if it was gone? How could he be here and talking if his soul was lost and what use was it anyway? Mind and thought were more important, that much was obvious because he was functioning and fine, if dead, which he admitted was a big if, but even so. It was a trivial thing then and easily replaceable.

"Well, couldn't I buy another?" he asked after a minute's thought. "On the platform, or on the train?"

_NOT AT THIS STATION,_ the Guard answered firmly. _EXCUSE ME. I HAVE TO SEE THIS TRAIN OFF, OR IT WILL BE LATE. _ He paused for a moment, as though considering that thought, _OR AT LEAST, IT WILL BE LATER THAN USUAL._

"Almathea, come on," his father said impatiently. "Leave the boy to sort out his own mess. _You_ have a ticket, and so do I. We don't need to get involved in this."

For a moment, the thought that his mother might do just as his father said clutched a cold hand around Barty's heart. It wouldn't matter if he _could_ get a ticket somehow - buy one, beg one, _steal_ one if he had to - if he had no-one left to board with. If he dared to board without his mother's love and protection, who knew where the train would take him?

He was fortunate that that same love and protection kept Almathea on the platform. "I'm not going anywhere," she said stubbornly. "Not without my son."

An old man's head poked out of the window at the front of the train, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. "Here, Master, what's the hold-up?" he demanded.

_SORRY ALBERT, THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT THEY WISH TO BOARD THE TRAIN. _the Guard apologised, before glancing at the cigarette, _YOU KNOW, I AM SURE YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SMOKE THAT ON THE TRAIN ANY MORE. THERE ARE PUBLIC HEALTH REGULATIONS._

"Yeah, well, begging your pardon, Master but when the bleedin' public health board can prove it causes lung cancer or asthma _here_, then I'll give up the smoking." the driver answered. "Until then, the bloody train smokes more than I do, so I can't see it's a problem." He eyed the pair on the platform sourly. "Are you coming or not? We get enough problems running this thing on time with all the leaves on the line without passengers starting to go and get indecisive about it all."

Passengers, in Albert's opinion, might well be the worst thing about driving a passenger train. In his opinion, the train and indeed the station might do much better without them.

"Don't be ridiculous, man, how can there be leaves on the line _here_?" Barty demanded, his temper finally starting to get the better of him. There were only a certain amount of hold-ups and obstacles a man might be expected to stand. It was a ridiculous excuse in the living world for trains being late, and doubly so here in a waystation to the afterlife. "It isn't as if there are any trees!"

"That's abuse, that is," Albert said mildly. "You aren't meant to abuse the driver. There's posters around the station and everything saying not to." He took a long draw from his cigarette, flicking the ash out the window, watching it drift in unusual shapes. "And it's _him_ isn't it? Scattering leaves on the rails every night, so that they're there. The things he'll do in the name of realism. It'll be snow next, you'll see."

The Guard almost looked embarrassed, _I DO NOT!_

"Yes you do, Master. I've _seen_ you, with your little dustpan and brush and everything.," Albert insisted. "Anyway, it's a dead giveaway when you make them black. Everyone _knows_ it's you then. They're a bugger to spot on the black rails as well." He smirked to himself, and looked again at the waiting passengers. "Well? _Are_ you coming?"

"No, we're not," Almathea said staunchly, still gripping her son's arm tightly. "Come along, Bartemius. We'll find a way off this platform together, or not at all."

His father looked as though he wanted to argue, but reluctantly joined them back on the platform, glaring at Barty as he did so.

The driver nodded, pulling his head back through the window; the train doors closed and the Guard gave one long blow on his whistle.

The three watched from the platform as the train left without them.

"I hope you're happy, young man," his father commented sourly once the train had left and the three turned to trudge drearily back towards the benches. "First you get me and your mother killed, then as if that weren't enough we can't even get to the afterlife because we have to wait for you. The _trouble_ your bad behaviour causes this family…"

It was the sort of lecture Barty was used to, and usually didn't bother to respond to. Mostly, it was easier to get his own way if he didn't _tell_ people just how stupid he thought they were. But the shock of discovering he had no ticket was almost too much to bear by itself without having to be scolded about it in addition.

"Yes, well, if you'd taken the time when you had the power to actually get _rid_ of the Dementors rather than deciding that anyone who disagreed with you needed to be dumped on an island with them, maybe I would still have a soul and we wouldn't have this problem!" he said sharply.

His father drew himself up haughtily, and oh, Barty remembered that expression from too many youthful indiscretions – an expression of outrage that said he had no idea how he could have ended up with such a bad son, certainly it could not be due to anything _he_ had done. "Don't you _dare_ talk to me in that insolent tone! That you've reached this state is no-one's fault but your own – certainly you were given _more_ than enough chances!"

"Because if I do, you'll do what? Find a train to take me home so you can send me to my room?" Barty demanded. "I'm sure you were always a man for giving second chances, Dad. That was why you told Aurors to kill people without a trial, wasn't it? That was why you stood up in court and told the world that you thought I should be send to Azkabhan because there was no way you I could ever be redeemable. Yeah, you were _all_ about giving chances."

"How many other boys were pulled out of Azkabhan once they were there?" his father snapped. "Your mother gave her life to give you that chance, and you _wasted_ it…"

"Because being invisible and stuck under _Imperius _for the rest of your life is just a terrific life to live, isn't it?" Barty asked angrily. "Sure it's better than having your memories sucked out by Dementors, but give it a few years and Azkabhan almost starts looking _good_ again. You helped me exactly as far as you felt Mother's wishes obliged you to, and never an _inch_ further!"

"What did you do to deserve more than that, Bartemius? Tell me, what did you _ever_ do to earn all the leniency you expected?"

"Stop it, both of you." Almathea was a patient woman, but eventually anyone would get tired of the constant squabbling those two put her through. "We're _going_ to find a way off this platform, and we're going to do it together. Quarrelling about whose fault it is won't help anyone."

"And how do you propose to do that when the boy hasn't got a ticket?" his father asked. "It's not as though we have an invisibility cloak here to sneak him onto the train with."

"We simply have to find another way, that's all." She shook her head at the two men. "You two, both of you, are far too used to having everything done your _own_ way. There's _always_ another way."

"Quite right, dear," an approving voice spoke up from a nearby bench, and the three turned as one to find they were being watched with interest by a small group of witches and wizards. "There _is_ always another way. There's the bus for a start."

"There's a bus?" Almathea brightened instantly at the advice. Barty and his father, a little more cautious of strange witches who offered help, stayed back.

"The Rail Replacement Bus, dear," the witch nodded happily. "It takes a little longer than the train of course, but it gets you off the platform at least."

"A little longer?" the other witch laughed. "Rowena's understating it a little there. Twice as long, more like _and_ you'll have to wait out in the rain for it to get here. And then when you get on it, there'll be some little devil sitting behind you, kicking you in the back the whole way."

"We would have thought ourselves lucky to have a bus when I was a boy," one of the wizards mused, his voice deep and mournful. "Horse and cart was all we had then. And you were lucky if the horse didn't get tired halfway there, and everyone had to wait until it had had a bit of a snack and a rest."

"Yes, well, _some_ of us…" the second wizard started.

"Yes, we know," Rowena cut him off before he could get any further, the weary note in her voice indicating that this was an argument she had heard one time too many. "In the North you were too _poor_ to have horse-and-carts, so you had to walk across a desert. We _all_ know, Salazar."

"On our own, too," the old man grumbled unabashed, giving Barty a piercing look. "None of this dragging our parents along to look after us. We stood on our _own_ feet in those days."

Barty squirmed, feeling a little self-conscious under that sharp gaze. Rowena smiled at him kindly.

"Yes, well, the _point_ is…" she went on, raising her voice a little, "that nowadays due to the glory of modern technology no-one _has_ to walk across a desert anymore. Archetypes migrate into the metaphysical plain with predictable ease. I have no doubt when that the next transport revolution occurs we will find this place shifts and alters to the patterns of the mind again. Now however, people can get on a bus and just wait until they're driven to their destination. Isn't that easier than a desert?"

"It was probably quicker when you were walking across the desert," the other witch murmured under her breath. "More reliable too, but that's public transport for you."

"Hush, Helga," Rowena scolded gently. "It hardly matters how long the journey takes as long as they get there in the end."

While they might all have their faults, none of the Crouch family were known for being particularly stupid, and it hardly took a genius to work out that the four people sniping and grumbling in front of them were no other than the first founders of Hogwarts themselves. Almathea had been following the conversation, a little awed by being in the presence of such people, and now she asked nervously, "But where does it _go?_"

The four founders answered as one. "To the next station!"

"And I could buy a ticket there?" Despite his distrust, it was hard for Barty to not let a little hope enter his voice.

"Perhaps," Rowena shrugged. "That's up to you. Tickets have to be earned, and they do not come cheaply. When you have reached the point where you are ready to pay for a new ticket, then you may buy one."

"Well, that's the boy sorted out then," his father said quickly, his voice gaining a fake cheerful tone. "He can get on the bus and sort himself out with his ticket – or not, as he pleases. There's certainly no need for _us_ to wait around for him."

"Wait," Almathea shook his hand off her arm, unable to be satisfied just yet. "They said he'd have to pay something for it…"

"Well, of course he'll have to pay something for it – did you expect them to let him off for free after all he did?" his father said impatiently. "He tortured people, and killed his own father – I hardly think they're going to slap his hand lightly and tell him not to do it again. There'll be horrible torments most likely – the _point_ is they're his to suffer, and not ours. He can get a ticket once they're over – that's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

It was a speech that drew Salazar Slytherin's attention, and he looked up, his sharp grey eyes focusing on the older Crouch half his act of crotchety old man, slipping away. "Ah, a man who believes in an eye for an eye, I see," he drawled.

"If you mean I don't think people should just be allowed to get away with things like that, you're right," his father agreed. "When people have done something wrong, they should have to pay for what they're done."

He seem to didn't notice the way the other Founders stiffened a touch, nor the warning glance Godric shot his fellow wizard.

"Salazar, you old snake…"

"Easy, Godric, we're only talking," Salazar said calmly. "I'm interested in the man, that's all – nothing wrong with being interested in a person. You seem like an honest sort of man, sir, someone who believes in sticking to the straight and narrow. Life has to have its rules after all, doesn't it?"

"Well, obviously," Barty Crouch Senior agreed, blustering a little. "Otherwise there would be chaos. Justice, that's the important thing."

"Reparations have to be made for the sake of the victims," Salazar went on, his voice smooth. "It's only right that if someone has caused suffering to another, he should be made to suffer himself, isn't that right?"

"Salazar…" Godric warned again.

"It's a simple enough question – there's hardly any harm in asking!" Salazar protested. "And I'm sure the gentleman agrees with me, don't you, Mr Crouch? Isn't that what you spent your life on – ensuring that if somebody had hurt another he was justly and thoroughly punished for it?" He glanced at Barty, and added, "Even if that person _was_ family."

"There's no place for prejudice towards family in a courtroom," He scowled at his son, as though only just reminded of his presence. "Besides, didn't I know better than anyone that the boy had no excuse? He'd been looked after, well brought up, given _every_ opportunity… the _shame_ he brought on us all with his bad behaviour was awful. Cost me my job in fact. But of course he never took the time to consider that."

Barty grimaced. "No, Dad, I'm afraid that while Dementors were engaged in sucking out all my happiest memories, the thought of how embarrassed you must have been about it all quite slipped my mind," he said sharply, "I simply can't imagine how that could have happened, but I must have been distracted."

"The boy had to be punished for hurting innocents, just as anyone else did." Salazar nodded, ignoring Barty's interjection. He let that rest for a heartbeat before adding, "…even, maybe _especially,_ those in power."

"Well, of course!" Still, it seemed Barty's father did not see the trap that was being laid for him.

His wife was a little quicker on the uptake. Almathea tugged frantically on her husbands arm. "Bartemius, dearest, _shut up!_"

Salazar smiled at her benignly before he went on, his voice taking on an almost dreamy note. "I wonder what suitable reparations would be for a Ministry official who condemned innocents to death and to torture." He raised his head to stare up towards the roof of the station as though contemplating. "I'm not sure. Godric, what do you think?"

The larger wizard sighed, and looked at the older Crouch accusingly. "You know, I _tried_ to warn you."

Barty was smirking, delighted at the sudden turnaround of events. "I told you, Dad. All my best habits I learnt from you."

His father gaped for a moment, struggling to find words. "I never tortured anyone!"

"But you allowed others to do it for you," Salazar said smoothly. "You allowed people to be sent away, knowing the evidence against them was scanty at best. You gave people powers to use Unforgivable Curses with no measures to control who they might end up using them on…"

"I gave the orders that were best for everyone," Mr Crouch tried to defend himself still. "I can't be held responsible for any others."

"Really?" Salazar raised his eyebrows and his eyes glittered. "So the person giving the orders is less responsible than the one carrying them out? That's an interesting point of view. Does that mean you would prefer that your boy here to have _been_ Voldemort rather than one of his Death Eaters? At least then most of the murders would only have been done in his name rather than his own hand."

Almathea gasped at that, and even Barty paled a little, glancing about as though expecting the Dark Lord to appear. "You're not meant to say his name," he cautioned nervously.

Salazar shrugged the warning off easily. "Really, young man, don't you think it's a little late for that kind of care once you reach this place? If a man cannot succeed with his own name and must adopt some posturing teenage pseudonym to be taken seriously then he is as much of a fool as those who believe him. You make the name, the name does not make you. Besides, do you really think even your "Voldemort" could stand against me?

Barty hesitated. The truth was that at first glance Salazar looked like nothing more than a little old man – not very powerful at all. There was something about the way the other Founders stood about him however, seeming to keep a safe distance between him and themselves that spoke volumes. Hadn't the Dark Lord himself turned up in some deceptively weak seeming forms over the years?

"Perhaps not," he conceded after a moment.

The answer earned him a single sharp smile from Salazar before he turned back to Barty's father. "Well?" he challenged. "Do you view it as morally better to be the puppet-master than the one who allows his strings to be pulled?"

"You can't seriously be comparing me to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" the man protested, alarmed.

"Why not?" Salazar asked mildly, watching his discomfort with what appeared to be amusement.

"Because… because, well, I'm a _good person!_"

There it was, the difference in Barty Crouch Senior's mind that marked the line between what he did, and what anybody else did. What he did was excusable, was necessary, because he was on the side of _right_ and surely that made all the difference… didn't it?

His son snorted quietly, holding rather a different view of affairs.

"_Are_ you?" Salazar's eyes narrowed, as though trying to examine the man more closely. "Certain of that, are you?"

"Yes!" But he was sweating now, and sounding a little less sure with every answer he gave.

"You know," Salazar said softly, "…you're trying very hard to get your wife to come with you to get on a train. A train you have a ticket for, unlike your son, but you have no control over where that ticket will take you. If you ask the Guard, he'll tell you that train takes you to only one destination, but he'll never tell you what that destination is. Where have you bought your ticket for, Mr Crouch? How certain are you that the train will see your life the same way you do?"

The man hesitated, looking to his wife as though for help. Almathea took his hand, holding it tightly. "He's not a bad person," she told Salazar defensively, as though her opinion alone could shield him from any harm that might come to. "Neither of them are. They're not _bad_ people, not deep-down bad."

"Perhaps not," Salazar agreed, turning that same sharp inquisitorial look on her until she shrank back. "But are they _good_ people?"

"Salazar, be nice," Helga warned quietly. "_She's_ done no harm."

"No harm but standing by and allowing them to!" Salazar retorted, "No harm but failing to stop them!"

"That was done out of love," Helga answered. "And we all make mistakes out of love now and then, even if that mistake is only loving someone too much to see in time when you ought to tell someone "No"." She looked at Salazar steadily until he shifted a little, dropping his gaze, seeming discomforted for some reason.

Barty meanwhile was smirking at his father, unable to resist a little jibe. "Not in so much of a hurry to get the train now then, Dad?" he asked. "What was it you were saying about horrible torments again?"

"Now, we'll have none of that," Rowena said quickly. "There's no need for anyone to be suffering any horrible torments."

"We're on a railway platform," Godric pointed out dryly. "Some people might consider it unavoidable."

Rowena ignored him, smiling kindly at Barty's father as though to soothe him. "Perhaps it would be beneficial if you all went on the bus together," she suggested gently. "Keep the family together as it were, and give you all a chance to clear your minds a little before you get the train."

It might have been just a nicer way of phrasing than simply saying "give you some time to think about what you've done" but Almathea gave her a grateful look for the family part. "That sounds like a good idea," she said, relieved.

The looks Barty and his father gave each other seemed to indicate they were less happy with the idea.

"It'll give you a little time to prepare for the journey ahead," Helga nodded, agreeing with the idea. "Souls are a little like livers. They can sometimes repair themselves as long as you stop abusing them."

Barty glanced at his father. As much as he enjoyed seeing the man uncomfortable, the idea of what sounded to be a fairly long bus-ride with him was not a happy one. Buses were even more cramped than trains, with nowhere to escape to when your family got to be too much. "Just how long is this bus ride?" he demanded.

The four Founders looked at each other, as though searching for an answer.

"Well, that depends on traffic conditions…" Helga started.

"… the weather, the time of day, whether you get stuck in the middle of rush-hour…" Godric agreed.

"Really, it would be fairest to say that you're on there for… well. As long as it takes." Rowena said tactfully. "Just as long as it takes to get there."

Salazar smirked at them, not bothering with tact. "A long time," he translated. "People say the trains are late? Huh. They don't even bother with a proper _timetable_ for the Rail Replacement buses. And if they arrive within an hour or so of the expected time it _still_ counts as being on time."

"It's not as though we have much choice, dear," Almathea pointed out gently, touching his arm. "Not if we want to get you on the train, and your father… well…" She glanced at her husband who was still looking a little unnerved by the turn things had taken. "Let's just go make sure we don't miss the bus, shall we? It hardly matters how long the journey takes as long as we get there in the end."

By the time they reached the small area outside the platform where the bus waited, Barty and his father were already arguing again, voices rising as they debated just who was the most responsible in seeing that they had to get the bus at all.

Helga waited until the pair had boarded the bus before she drew Almathea back, stopping her from stepping on.

"You know, you don't have to get this with them," she said softly. "_Your_ ticket is clean. You could get the train right now if you wanted."

Almathea shook her head. "Thank you, but no," she said firmly sure of one thing at least. "It's not worth going anywhere if it means leaving them behind." She glanced into the bus, to where her husband and son were already sitting. She did have the choice in one way, but in another she wouldn't be who she was if she didn't go with them. No one was forcing her, but in the end would she be the person she believed herself to be if she didn't share their fate? Probably not. "Besides, I'm not sure your Salazar isn't at least a little right. If I had told them both they were wrong sooner, and a little more firmly, perhaps things would have been different. I may not be as responsible as they are, but I'm still responsible."

"That's a good attitude to have," Helga nodded at that. "Good luck to you then."

Almathea hesitated though, a question suddenly springing to her mind. "If you don't mind me asking… why are _you_ four still on the platform?" she asked shyly. "Surely _you _can all get the train if you wanted?"

Helga laughed at the question, and shook her head. "A part of Rowena is still waiting for her daughter," she explained. "And the rest of us… old grudges and arguments can be harder to settle than you might think. We're not willing to go without Salazar, but we've not quite yet forgiven him yet either. Or ourselves for that matter. We're waiting it out until one of us is prepared to admit that they were wrong. We've made a lot of progress - it shouldn't take more than another five hundred years or so, I shouldn't think."

Five hundred years seemed an awfully long time to Almathea, and she glanced up at the bus again, a little more nervously this time. "Don't you get tired of it?" she asked. "All the arguments, and the fuss and everything?"

"Well, the first few centuries were pretty bad," Helga admitted. "At least until we all worked out that Unforgivable Curses didn't _work_ here. Then we shouted for a while, and then we talked which is sometimes just shouting at a lower volume…"

She smiled again, and looked back towards the other founders. Already, they seemed to be engaged in a debate of some sort. Godric had flushed with anger, and even from a distance, it was fairly easy to hear Salazar's raised voice. "…and if we hadn't had to transport everyone from the South because someone thought it was more _convenient_ for a school that was in _Scotland _ of all places, things might have been a little _different!"_

"I'll tell you a secret," she said quickly, seeing Almathea's anxious expression. "You've heard the saying, I expect, that Hell is other people?"

Almathea nodded warily, her mind already imagining just how bad her husband and son could make a bus-ride if they put their minds to it, all of the little torments and insults they could inflict on each other. A bus ride that could go on and on and on…

"So is Heaven." Helga said seriously. "And when _they've_ worked that out… you'll know you've arrived."


	8. Ghost Train

She had been traveling for a long time now. That was the amazing thing about trains, Helena was discovering, the way that you could keep travelling for what felt like forever, and yet never seem any closer to your destination.

Still, nearly there now she hoped. She stood up as the train neared the station, heaving her bag back onto her shoulders, and got ready for the stampede that seemed to ensue every time people needed to get off. Everyone seemed to have a place to go, and everyone seemed to know how to get to it. There was only her left behind, staring at a timetable as though it were written in a foreign language, trying desperately to understand its hidden secrets. Even _aparecium _didn't seem to work on these cryptic instructions, or any of the other puzzle solving charms she had learned over the years..

"Excuse me!" Sometimes it was easier to give in and just ask for help. If she'd realised that earlier, she might not have even have had to make this awful journey, but hindsight was always 20/20. "Excuse me, I'm trying to get home. Can you help?"

The old lady she had hailed turned to look at her, revealing a wrinkled face, and eyes that had turned milky white from cataracts. "Where is it you're trying to get to, dearie?"

"Just... just home." Helena displayed her ticket, which was by now looking somewhat the worse for wear from being clutched for so long.

The old woman peered at it, though surely there could have been no way for her to see through those eyes. "Dear, dear me. Well, I can only say that if I were trying to get _there_ I wouldn't start from here."

Helena felt her heart sink. "There's no direct train then?"

"Not from York, dearie." The lady studied her, her expression not unsympathetic, and gave a cackling laugh. "Hell of a journey, isn't it?"

"You could say that." Helena sighed, and shifted her bag more firmly onto her shoulders. Her back was starting to ache again. "I'm not used to travelling on trains. I didn't know it was going to be so complicated."

"It can be hard to find your way when you've gotten lost," the woman agreed, and patted her arm. "You could try from Leeds. All sorts of trains go from there."

***

It turned out that the train to Leeds had been cancelled and replaced by a bus due to a tree on the line. This seemed a little excessive. Previous delays at stations had been said to be due to leaves on the line, upping this to a tree seemed to Helena to be a definite step in the wrong direction.

Still, it wasn't as though there was any option, so she waited resignedly in a crowd of grumbling people as the rain drizzled down on them. Occasionally frantic people in florescent jackets would reassure them that the bus was on its way, and would arrive sometime, probably, they hoped.

"This is ridiculous," she complained finally. "And Muggles actually choose to travel this way regularly? Even the horses they used to use in my day would be quicker." She shivered. "Warmer too."

"Awful, isn't it?" The woman next to her smiled sympathetically. "But I think it's always like this, one way or another. The last time I came this way they said lightening had hit the signal, and we were all stuck for _hours."_

"You've been this way before then?" That was enough to make Helena look at her hopefully. Surely someone who knew the route could show her the way.

The woman nodded. "To see my husband." She looked serious suddenly. "I shouldn't have gone. And he shouldn't have asked. We both knew better really."

"Why not?" Helena asked, intrigued.

Her fellow traveller looked at her hard for a moment. "You know when you're boarding and getting off the train, and they tell you to mind the gap?"

Helena nodded.

"We didn't," the woman said simply. "We forgot that the gap existed, either of us, and we fell right in together. And let me tell you that when you're lost in the gap, it takes a very long way before you find yourself again."

"I don't understand." Helena stared at her, confused. "What did you do?"

The woman sighed, and gestured to the ticket which Helena still clutched tightly. "I forgot I wasn't carrying a return. And don't you forget that you aren't either, sweetheart. We're only meant to go one way."

"Oh." Helena looked at her, then down again at her ticket. "I don't... there's nothing for me to go back for anyway, though thank you for the advice. If I can just find my way once, I'll be happy."

"Doesn't it say on the ticket?" It was the woman's turn to look at Helena with curiosity now.

"I was meant to use it a long time ago. I don't think I can go that route any more now." Helena admitted. "In fact, the way it's going, I'm not sure I can go _any_ route. Every time I try it feels like I end up in circles." She bit her lip, looking anxious and miserable. "Do tickets go out of date?"

"I don't know. I never heard of it happening before, at least on _this_ line." The woman studied her for a moment. "How long ago, if you don't mind me asking? I'm sure that if it's just a matter of a few years..."

"Oh, about a millennium or so. Give or take a decade here and there." Helena shrugged unhappily. "I... didn't want to go when it was time to, so I went somewhere else instead. Now I do want to go, and I just can't seem to work out how to get there."

"That does sound like a bit of a fix," her travelling companion agreed. "Have you tried Birmingham?"

"Pardon?" Helena blinked at her for a moment.

"Birmingham," the woman said more confidently. "Lots of trains from there. You'll get home from there, no doubt about it."

***

Another station, another timetable which seemed to have been written in code, and yet another train - this one apparently headed for Liverpool. Helena stood shoulder to shoulder as more people crowded on, each pushing and shoving for enough room to breathe.

"If we were cows traveling in conditions like this, the RSPCA would step in," someone complained, and a general murmur of unhappy agreement went up. Helena found herself wondering absently just how cows _did_ make that last great journey. Was there a mystical cattle-truck somewhere out there?

"You've got a lot of baggage." The voice came from behind her, and she twisted to look back to see a young blond boy eying her quizzically. "Doesn't it make your back hurt?"

"A little," Helena admitted, trying to shift the weight a little, heaving it higher onto her back. It really did start to make your back ache after a time, and every spell she could think of that might lighten the load just didn't seem to work here. No matter what she tried, it remained as heavy as ever, always slowing her down.

"Put it down then," he suggested, as though that were obvious.

"There's no room." Helena glanced at the floor, not seeing even an inch of room there. "Besides, with this many people on here it's likely to vanish if I set it down for too long." And the idea that she might lose it after heaving it along this far and this long seemed horrifying, even if she couldn't remember quite what was in there right now.

"Huh." The boy scowled, and rather pointedly ducked out of the way as the train turned abruptly and he narrowly avoided being hit in the face with her bag. "Isn't room for you to carry it either more like. Don't see why you have to shove it in my face, just because you don't want to put it down."

Helena flushed guiltily, but before she could apologise the train abruptly halted with a jerk, and people began to pile off. She followed, a little dazed, still struggling under the weight of her bag. "Wait! Are we at Liverpool?"

The blond boy glanced back at her for only a moment, expression impatient. "Didn't you hear the tannoy? We haven't got a driver any more. That one can only take us this far if he's to stick to his contracted hours. We have to find another way of travelling if we want to go any further."

Of course. Why would anyone ever assume anything so stupidly naive as that a train might actually bother to take them where they wanted to go?

Following the crowd, she found her way to another platform, and sank down on the nearest bench, fighting back weariness. Traveling seemed to sap energy in a way that should be impossible when you considered that most of the time was spent sitting down.

Nearby, a young woman, her distinctive white hair streaked with a lock of black and swirled up into a precise no nonsense bun, corralled a large group of children in what seemed to be a school trip. Helena watched, mostly because it took less effort than getting back up and trying to find another train.

"And can anyone tell me who decides the final destination?"

Yes, definitely a school trip, Helena decided, as the woman picked from the sudden forest of raised hands. She'd floated through enough classrooms to know that tone of questioning, even if the question itself was unfamiliar.

"Yes, April?"

A small dark-haired girl wrinkled her forehead in deep thought. "Is it... the passenger, Miss?"

"Can anyone tell me _why_ it would be the passenger?" Again, the forest of eager hands.

"Samuel?"

"Because.... because no-one else knows where they ought to be going?"

"Well done." The teacher strode down the platform, to fetch something from a cupboard which Helena was fairly certain hadn't been on the platform only a moment ago. One of her pupils, however, had grown bored with the lesson.

"Hi!" He plopped himself on the bench beside Helena with a grin that promised mischief. "I'm Jason. I see dead people."

"Really?" Helena looked at him wearily. "That's... nice."

Evidently this was not the reaction the youngster had been hoping for. He frowned, and tried again. "I bet you don't even know you're dead, right?" he asked hopefully.

"Jason!" He'd caught the attention of one of the other children now, and a slightly squint-eyed little girl came to tug at him. "You know Miss Susan says we're not meant to bug people on our school trips, 'cept if they come in _special_ like that bogeyman."

"I'm only talking to her!" Jason shrugged the restraining hand off. "_Do_ you know you're dead?" he demanded again of Helena.

It was hard to resist. Helena allowed herself a small smile. "Well, I must admit that being a ghost for a few centuries gave me a bit of a clue."

She hadn't spoken loudly, but that didn't seem to matter. Every young head turned towards her as though drawn by a magnet. Suddenly the bench was crowded with children, all pushing for a better look.

"Do you have to wear a white sheet to be a ghost? Only all the ghosts I've seen have to have a white sheet and chains and go 'oooooo'. Can you go 'oooo'?" a small boy asked eagerly.

"Don't be stupid, Patrick, that's only what ghosts do in _stories!"_

"Yeah, well, Miss Susan says that all stories have to start somewhere!" Patrick retorted, turning to glare at his detractor.

Jason seemed more interested in the gory details. "How did you die? Was it _very_ bloody? I saw this thing about this woman who got to be a ghost, and this man cut all the bits off her and then put them all in a sack and then buried them all in different places so no-one could ever find all of her and her ghost had all this blood, and _organs_ showing and _brains..._" He peered at her more closely at that as if brains might suddenly make an appearance. "I can't see _your_ brains," he noted, sounding disappointed.

"Yeah," Patrick chimed in at that. "If you show us your brains, we can draw 'em later for our reports."

"I wasn't that type of ghost." It was a little discomforting to have someone staring at your skull as though they could make brains burst out of it just by _looking_, and Helena shifted away, moving to stand up. She wondered privately just what type of school these children went to. Certainly, Hogwarts had never been set up to be an ordinary school, but even there no child had never approached with the demand that she show them her brains. Unless they were talking metaphorically in which case technically speaking they did that all the time in the Ravenclaw Tower.

"But you _were_ murdered, right?" Jason persisted with more hope than really seemed appropriate in the situation. "An 'orrible bloody murder?"

Helena hesitated, that question coming closer to the truth than she liked. The memory was clear still - the running, the desperation to run just as far and fast as she could rather than face her mother's inevitable disappointment, the argument when the Baron had found her and she refused to go back, all passion and defiance and crackling magic...

And then that moment of relief at being right that he had been bluffing, that of course he wasn't really going to hurt her, before she realized that actually he had and that was her own body at her feet. There had been a man, she vaguely remembered, and a horse and cart, and they had wanted her to get on for a journey, but she had been afraid that her mother would be at the end of it, so she hadn't gone, couldn't go.

She'd headed to her mother's school instead, reasoning that if her mother really had wanted to see her than she could find _her_ rather than the other way around. But she had waited and waited for centuries and no-one had come, so it seemed that her mother was still too angry for that after all and each passing second had been a barrier building higher, mortared with secrets and silence...

"I bet it was a murder," Jason said with some satisfaction. "A really awful one. Look, she's gone all quiet."

"Yeah, but that's what lots of people do when you talk at them, Jason," the squint-eyed little girl pointed out. "Right before they start crying and run away." She reached to tug tentatively at Helena's hand, and Helena realized with a start that the child actually _could _touch her here. It felt odd, after so long simply floating through people and things to have a hand - albeit a small and suspiciously sticky one - grasp hers firmly. "Are you okay, Miss? You ought not to take any notice of Jason."

"Are… are you dead too?" she queried tentatively. Perhaps there'd been a terrible accident or… Her brain went back to the battle at Hogwarts, the battle that had damaged the school to such an extent that she had felt unable to use it even as a temporary home any more. But surely children this small couldn't have gotten caught up in a war?

The question seemed to cause general amusement though. "Naw, not us!" Patrick reassured her easily.

"We're just visiting," the squint-eyed girl reassured her, still clinging to Helena's hand. "We visit _lots_ of things."

"Most of them more interesting than you." Jason sounded somewhat accusing about that. "What's the good of being a ghost if you're not going to wear a sheet, or yodel, or show us any gory stuff or anything? Even the Soulcake Tuesday Duck was better than that. At least he brought _cake_. And he was a duck."

"You didn't ought to have pulled those feathers out of his tail though, Jason," the squint-eyed girl said severely. "He didn't like that, 'specially when you said you were collecting them for a pillow."

"I don't have any cake, I'm afraid," Helena said apologetically. "And I'm for… well, I _was_ a House ghost." She'd enjoyed that too. Generations of small Ravenclaws had passed by under her watchful eye, each one learning the tricks of working of the password just as they learnt all the other tricks of Hogwarts – twice as fast as any of the other students, she sometimes thought. Her mother would have liked that, would have enjoyed watching her legacy go on as one bright child after another grew into a gifted young wizard.

It had been one of the reasons she had stayed at Hogwarts, long after she had realised no-one was going to come to look for her again. Sometimes she had felt as though if she watched over each student enough, each one could be like a tiny apology to her mother, a way of trying to make up for the wrong she had done.

"The question is not what you were," a calm voice interceded. "The question is what you are now" Helena startled from her thoughts to find that the teacher – Miss Susan? – was standing in front of her, having seemingly returned from whatever quest she had been on.

The woman clapped her hands before Helena could reply though, voice turning brisk. "Children, what have I told you about bullying supernatural beings?"

"That we didn't ought to do it, because even if you have got a poker it's not right to abuse it?" the squint-eyed girl volunteered.

"Very good, Cecilia. Now, everyone sit _down, _please. Hands on knees!" And quicker than Helena could have imagined possible, the entire crowd was sitting cross-legged on the floor – no, on a _carpet, _ and Helena was almost certain that there hadn't been a carpet in the station a moment ago. There couldn't have been. There was no chewing gum embedded in it for a start.

"Now, can anyone tell me why ghosts would be using the station?"

Hands shot up, and one was picked. "They're travelling, Miss?"

"That's right," Helena admitted cautiously, unsure if she was actually meant to be taking an active part in the lesson. "But I keep getting lost."

"My Dad says that if you get lost, you ought to ask one of the Watch," Patrick advised. "Except if it's Nobby Nobbs he says, 'cause he'd get you home but steal your shoes before you got there. Did you try one of the Watch?"

"I haven't seen any of them," Helena admitted. "I kept trying to read the timetables, but I must be reading them wrong somehow. I never seem to end up where I think I should be."

"Where were you trying to go?" Cecilia smiled up at her from the carpet.

"Home." Just the word made her throat tighten a little. "It's… well, it _was_ a little village in Scotland. It was a long time ago, I guess. I don't even know if it exists any more. Maybe that's why I can't find it." It would explain why the trains kept taking her around the country to strange towns, cities which hadn't even been built when she had been alive. How could they take her to a place that no longer existed?

But Hogwarts was gone, or at least so damaged that it would be a long time before young Ravenclaws set foot in the place again, and she had no place else left to go. No home save somewhere gone forever and surely logic dictated there was nowhere to go. It was hard then not to despair just a little, just privately, even in a crowd of children who belonged somewhere at least.

"Miss?" Cecilia tugged at her skirt anxiously. "Miss, don't cry. Jason, did you stick a pin in her leg again?"

"Home always exists somewhere." Miss Susan spoke over Jason's indignant denials, her eyes a piercing blue as she focused on her. "If you can't find it, it sometimes means you're looking in the wrong places."

"Where would I look except for Scotland?" Helena asked, confused. "Scotland is where it _is_. Or was."

"What made it home?" Miss Susan was watching her closely now.

It was a teacher thing, Helena knew that. They were _good_ at that trick of never quite giving you the answer but making you find it yourself. It didn't make it any less annoying when it was done to you though, even though she had done it to thousands of Ravenclaws over time. She groped after the answer helplessly. "Well, it had my room…" she managed. "And there was the tree, which I used to climb…"

She'd worked her first bit of magic falling out of that tree, floating in mid-air before she managed to split her head open on the ground beneath. "And the gardens where we used to play hide and seek, and the swing where Mother used to push me when I was small, and – oh." She broke off abruptly, finally understanding what the other woman was implying. "It had Mother."

Miss Susan smiled slowly, and nodded. "I think that deserves a gold star."

Helena slumped in her chair. "Then I can't ever go home," she said, defeated.

"Why not?" That was Cecilia again, and Helena really didn't want to wonder what sticky substance the child was transferring from her hands every time she tugged on Helena's skirt.

"Because I did something awful, and she won't ever forgive me," Helena explained simply. "And I wouldn't know how to find her now anyway."

That brought howls of protest from the class however.

"She'll forgive you!"

"Mothers _always_ forgive you!"

"My mother forgave me even when I smashed her best vase."

"My mother forgave me even when I set the cat on fire!"

"Jason's mother forgives him and he's _Jason!"_

(Jason looked just a little smug at the last one, and Miss Susan looked as though she might be trying not to laugh.)

"You see," Cecilia explained from the floor. "You can't believe them, mothers. Sure they'll _say_ you've done something awful and they'll never forgive you ever but they don't really mean it. All they only want is for you to say sorry."

"It's true," Patrick agreed next to her. "Mine calls it taking responsibility." He beamed. "Sometimes if you look sad enough about it, they even forget they meant to stop your pocket-money."

"It's not quite as simple as that." But could it be? _Could_ it be? Helena's heart beat a little faster with the thought that it might be a possibility. Had she really spent so many centuries running, when all she would ever have had to do was go back and say sorry? What a _waste!_ "In any case, even if she would forgive me, I don't have the faintest idea where she is now. She's probably gone somewhere better a long time ago."

"So call the number!" Patrick pointed towards a phone-box – and Helena was _certain_ that hadn't been there a moment ago – and a sign.

Helena squinted to read the sign. "_Have you run away?"_ she said out loud, uncertainly. There was a phone number printed underneath. She stared at it, not quite believing. "This wasn't – did this just appear? I never saw it before."

"Miss Susan says that sometimes things exist only when you need them to," Cecilia volunteered. "Like the Tooth fairy, and the Hogfather exist until we won't need them any more."

"I reckon presents will always exist though," Jason added happily. "Because we're always going to need _them_."

"But…" It didn't make sense still, and Helena was still confused as she picked up the phone. "I've been lost for _ages!"_

"Sometimes you have to be willing to receive help before you can get it." And that was Miss Susan again, her voice calm. "Would you have called your mother before now, if you had had a phone?"

"Well… no." She had been too afraid before now, too guilty.

"Then there was no phone."

It took a few minutes to work out how to use the thing – Helena's knowledge of technology was roughly a thousand years out of date, and she was not sure whether she was hampered or helped by the many small hands willing to show her how to do it. Finally, she set it to her ear.

An odd, rather robotic voice spoke through the receiver. _"Thank you for calling the Runaway Help Service. If you are calling because you have run away, press 1. If you are calling because you have seen a runaway, press 2. If you are calling because the train is late again, we do not care, please hang up now."_

Helena pressed one, and waited. For a few moments scratchy music played down the line, before someone answered.

_HELLO. HAVE YOU RUN AWAY._

Helena hesitated. There was something about that voice which sent shivers down her back, and it hadn't quite sounded as thought it were actually asking a question so much as making a statement. "Yes?" she hazarded.

_GOOD._ There was a pause before the voice added. _NOT GOOD THAT YOU HAVE RUN AWAY, YOU UNDERSTAND, BUT GOOD THAT YOU HAVE IF YOU ARE CALLING THIS NUMBER. OTHERWISE YOU WOULD BE WASTING THE PHONE OPERATIVES' TIME._

"Right," Helena agreed weakly. "I can see that would be bad."

_NOT THAT TIME MATTERS SO MUCH WHEN YOU CAN BE IN ALL PLACES SIMULTANEOUSLY, OF COURSE, HA HA HA._

Helena wasn't quite sure how to answer that. The silence stretched on for a moment or two before she asked meekly, "did you need more information?"

_INFORMATION. YES._ Paper crackled at the other end of the phone, as though the operator were leafing through a script before it started again. _HAVE YOU RUN AWAY._

"Master, you're doing it all wrong!" And now there was _another_ voice, this one male and rather elderly, interrupting the first. "I _told_ you, you gotta do that emparthee thing."

_BUT ALBERT, I WAS USING EMPATHY_, the first voice protested. _I WAS INSERTING WARM HUMOUR INTO THE CONVERSATION TO CAUSE THE SUBJECT TO RELAX, AS THE INSTRUCTIONS SAY._

"Forgive me for saying so, Master, but your laugh isn't one that most people want to hear when they're trying to relax. Gives 'em the jitters, you see? No, no, what you wanna do, is…"

Helena took the phone away from her ear, and peered at it with some confusion as the discussion went on, apparently with no input needed from her. "I think they are arguing," she explained apologetically as the class looked at her curiously.

"I see." Miss Susan sighed, and stood up, easily cutting a path through the assembled children. "Excuse me, please. May I take that? Thank you."

The conversation that followed was all but incomprehensible to Helena. "Albert, what are you – I thought you were driving the trains now? Well, no wonder they're always late if you're in the office all the time. Yes, I do appreciate that you need your tea but… just go and drive your trains will you? Or clear the lines again, or polish your cap or something." She paused for a moment, listening. "No, Grandfather, you don't need a script. Yes, I appreciate you want to be realistic but… just put her mother on, will you? That's all she needs." Another pause before she spoke again, faster this time, keeping her voice down. "Yes, I am coming on Sunday, but don't let Albert fry the Yorkshire puddings again. Yes, I'll see you then."

Finally she handed the phone back to Helena. "It's for you now." She looked a little flushed, though not exactly unhappy, and for a moment Helena wondered what it was that made home for Miss Susan, a woman who could exist with a class full of children in a place like this.

She only had a moment to wonder though, because a familiar voice was speaking out of the phone, full of anxious disbelief and hope. "Helena? Sweetheart? Is it really you?"

"Mother…" Helena breathed, and there was a small hard lump in her chest that wouldn't quite let her cry, but made it hard to speak because her throat burned with emotion of terror and hope mingling together. "Mother, I… I'm _sorry! _Sorry that I stole it and… I would have come home. I would, but I thought he was lying when he said you were sick, just trying to convince me, and…!"

"Sweetheart, when I've waited this long, do you think what I want is an apology?" Rowena's voice was warm, but Helena could hear the tears in it. "Just come home, Helena. That's all I want."

"I can't!" Helena blurted. "The trains – none of them will go the right way for me! I tried, and I've been _everywhere _and asked_ everyone_ but I don't know which is the right one to get."

"You haven't worked that out yet?" her mother asked gently and it was that same tone from a childhood, when they were discovering how the world worked and different types of magic that would bind them together. "Helena, darling, _any_ train is the right one, as long as you know where you need to go."

"Oh." Helena swallowed hard. So simple a solution. Somehow it felt like the answer should be hard and painful and yet forgiveness unfolded as naturally as a flower just given the chance to bloom ."I'll get the next one then. You'll wait for me?"

"Helena, I've been waiting a thousand years for you to come home now. I think I can wait a few more hours. Just be careful of the leaves on the line."

"Okay." Helena swallowed, trying to rid herself of that pesky lump in her throat that she might've said was her heart if her Ravenclaw logic had not rebelled and demanded anatomical accuracy. "I… I love you. I'll see you in a bit."

It took a few attempts to hang the phone up correctly, and she stumbled away towards the nearest platform, forgetting the class for a moment.

"Miss!" They had not forgotten her, however, and a dozen pairs of hands caught eagerly at her skirt, holding her up. "Miss, wait! You forgot your bag!"

"Oh…" Helena blinked at the bulky heavy bag, discarded by the phone, and shook her head. "It's okay. I don't think I need to take that with me any more."

"At least take this." Miss Susan smiled at her, a warm genuine smile, and pressed something into her hand. "You've more than earned it. Quickly now, the train is coming."

It wasn't until she was on the train, finally on the way home to her mother, the journey faster and smoother than any she had experienced before that Helena looked down at the object in her hand. There, glittering like a precious gift was a small gold star, with Kings Cross written inscribed at its centre. She was still smiling at it hours later, when the train pulled in - late of course, but who would expect otherwise? - and she looked out of the window and saw her mother's eyes, her mother's face, her mother's smile and above all … home.


End file.
